Anton Bruckner
Puritan Board Professor
What are the positions of you Puritanees here. My early belief was that it was a global flood, then I changed my mind to a regional flood.
Regional Flood or Global Flood?
- Thread starter Anton Bruckner
- Start date
- Status
Bladestunner316
Puritan Board Doctor
global
VirginiaHuguenot
Puritanboard Librarian
Global.
MICWARFIELD
Puritan Board Freshman
Slippery - Have you read Ralph Woodrows writings on this subject?
Mike
Mike
Puddleglum
Puritan Board Sophomore
Global
Global, if it were local I wouldn't be able to understand why:
1) An ark was built. They could have walked to somewhere not affected.
2) There were birds on the ark, surely they could have flown somewhere else.
3) They did not see land for 40 days. It seems like a long time not to see any land if all land was not covered.
4) There have been large local floods since this flood. God promised to never flood the earth like that again.
[Edited on 3-20-2005 by daveb]
1) An ark was built. They could have walked to somewhere not affected.
2) There were birds on the ark, surely they could have flown somewhere else.
3) They did not see land for 40 days. It seems like a long time not to see any land if all land was not covered.
4) There have been large local floods since this flood. God promised to never flood the earth like that again.
[Edited on 3-20-2005 by daveb]
Anton Bruckner
Puritan Board Professor
I haven't done much reading on this topic.
Anyway it seems to me to be Regional in the sense that, for the people to have been scattered, God had to confuse their tongues.
If the tongues weren't confused before the flood, it seems to me that people were all living in one area. i.e I haven't seen evidence of them building boats and ships. This indicates that they lived in a fertile plain, kinda like the great Sahara Desert, if it was fertile, hence being ignorant of the sea, muchless to make seafaring vessels. And it wasn't because they were stupid, because these guys were smart, so if they were knowledgeable of there being great expanses of water, their ingenuity would have surely urged them on to make boats.
This in addition to them laughing at Noah, indicating that a Boat was really a wierd vessel. But that's just my conjectures.
Anton Bruckner
Puritan Board Professor
Meg I believe it was Regional because of these circumstantial evidences.
1. The only time humans got scattered abroad the earth was after the confusion of the languages. Since the flood happened before the languages were confounded, I theorize, that humans were concentrated in one locality.
2. No mention of ship building, indicating that the locality where humans lived were removed from any major expanse of water.
3. If there were any major expanse of water, I think the genius and the relative freshness of the human mind and intellect would have invented Boats and Ships. These guys already invented musical isntruments etc, founded cities etc.
4. Noah's building of the Ark was considered ludicrous by others except his family. This is indicative of the fact that these guys were not knowledgeable of any great expanse of water, to make the building of such a craft logical in respects to the natural.
5. There are many instances where the whole earth and the whole world is used to connote locality in relation to a particular religion and not the globe i.e God giving Nebuchandrezzer the kingdoms of the world, and Cyrus. Matthew 24/25 where the tribes of the earth will mourn when the see the Son of God coming in the clouds of Heaven. The Gospel shall be preached to the whole world which simply meant the Roman Empire, and not necessarily the whole globe.
[Edited on 3-20-2005 by Slippery]
1. The only time humans got scattered abroad the earth was after the confusion of the languages. Since the flood happened before the languages were confounded, I theorize, that humans were concentrated in one locality.
2. No mention of ship building, indicating that the locality where humans lived were removed from any major expanse of water.
3. If there were any major expanse of water, I think the genius and the relative freshness of the human mind and intellect would have invented Boats and Ships. These guys already invented musical isntruments etc, founded cities etc.
4. Noah's building of the Ark was considered ludicrous by others except his family. This is indicative of the fact that these guys were not knowledgeable of any great expanse of water, to make the building of such a craft logical in respects to the natural.
5. There are many instances where the whole earth and the whole world is used to connote locality in relation to a particular religion and not the globe i.e God giving Nebuchandrezzer the kingdoms of the world, and Cyrus. Matthew 24/25 where the tribes of the earth will mourn when the see the Son of God coming in the clouds of Heaven. The Gospel shall be preached to the whole world which simply meant the Roman Empire, and not necessarily the whole globe.
[Edited on 3-20-2005 by Slippery]
LawrenceU
Puritan Board Doctor
If my post sounded polemic, please accept my apology. I was trying to be concise due to time. I believe, along with most conservative scholars, that the reason I gave above necessiates a global flood. There have been numerous regional floods that were violently destructive of all life since the Noahic flood. This makes God's covenant meaningless. Additionally, the covenant equates the destruction of the antediluvian world with the firey judgment of the post diluvian world, which has yet to take place. With that judgment be regional or universal?
Keon, I will address your stated reasons:
The centralised population: This could very well be a false presupposition. Man could have spread widely prior to the flood. There was ample time and ther is no record of there not spreading. The Bible only addresses the 'centralised population' after the flood. In context it is stating that it is abnormal.
The 'ship builiding'. In acutallity this has no bearing upon whether the flood was regional or universal. Even with that the likely would have been no need for ships prior to the flood. All land was likely contiguous (still is actually) due to lower levels in the oceans for two reasons. The oceans would have been at a lower level due to the waters under the earth being contained, and the waters above the earth being suspended.
Yes, sometimes world is used for a localised area; but, not when there is a quailifier such as in this instance the coming judgment of fire.
Keon, I will address your stated reasons:
The centralised population: This could very well be a false presupposition. Man could have spread widely prior to the flood. There was ample time and ther is no record of there not spreading. The Bible only addresses the 'centralised population' after the flood. In context it is stating that it is abnormal.
The 'ship builiding'. In acutallity this has no bearing upon whether the flood was regional or universal. Even with that the likely would have been no need for ships prior to the flood. All land was likely contiguous (still is actually) due to lower levels in the oceans for two reasons. The oceans would have been at a lower level due to the waters under the earth being contained, and the waters above the earth being suspended.
Yes, sometimes world is used for a localised area; but, not when there is a quailifier such as in this instance the coming judgment of fire.
C. Matthew McMahon
Christian Preacher
Global.
Puritan Sailor
Puritan Board Doctor
Gen. 7
17Now the flood was on the earth forty days. The waters increased and lifted up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. 18The waters prevailed and greatly increased on the earth, and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters. 19And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. 20The waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered. 21And all flesh died that moved on the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man. 22All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died. 23So He destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground: both man and cattle, creeping thing and bird of the air. They were destroyed from the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained alive. 24And the waters prevailed on the earth one hundred and fifty days.
Clearly the Scriptures teach global. There's no way around it. It's repeated over and over again the global consequences of this judgment. And to suggest that societies were only localized in one general region before the flood really is speculation. There was almost 2000 years for mankind to multiply and spread throughout the earth. If you would like possible proof of this, simply look at the fossil records. There are fossils of men, villages of men, and huge "boneyards" of animals all over the world. Only the biblical flood could explain that.
[Edited on 3-21-2005 by puritansailor]
17Now the flood was on the earth forty days. The waters increased and lifted up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. 18The waters prevailed and greatly increased on the earth, and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters. 19And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. 20The waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered. 21And all flesh died that moved on the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man. 22All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died. 23So He destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground: both man and cattle, creeping thing and bird of the air. They were destroyed from the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained alive. 24And the waters prevailed on the earth one hundred and fifty days.
Clearly the Scriptures teach global. There's no way around it. It's repeated over and over again the global consequences of this judgment. And to suggest that societies were only localized in one general region before the flood really is speculation. There was almost 2000 years for mankind to multiply and spread throughout the earth. If you would like possible proof of this, simply look at the fossil records. There are fossils of men, villages of men, and huge "boneyards" of animals all over the world. Only the biblical flood could explain that.
[Edited on 3-21-2005 by puritansailor]
Anton Bruckner
Puritan Board Professor
I will post two articles on this issue. One is for Local and the other is for Global. Then I will throw in my two cents.
Mark Isaac
Creationist models are often criticized for being too vague to have any predictive value. A literal interpretation of the Flood story in Genesis, however, does imply certain physical consequences which can be tested against what we actually observe, and the implications of such an interpretation are investigated below. Some creationists provided even more detailed models, and these are also addressed (see especially sections 5 and 7).
References are listed at the end of each section.
Two kinds of flood model are not addressed here. First is the local flood. Genesis 6-8 can be interpreted as a homiletic story such that the "world" that was flooded was just the area that Noah knew. Creationists argue against the local flood model because it doesn't fit their own literalist preconceptions, but I know of no physical evidence contrary to such a model.
Second, the whole story can be dismissed as a series of supernatural miracles. There is no way to contradict such an argument. However, one must wonder about a God who reportedly does one thing and then arranges every bit of evidence to make it look like something else happened. It's entirely possible that a global flood occurred 4000 years ago or even last Thursday, and that God subsequently erased all the evidence, including our memories of it. But even if such stories are true, what's the point?
1. Building the Ark
Wood is not the best material for shipbuilding. It is not enough that a ship be built to hold together; it must also be sturdy enough that the changing stresses don't open gaps in its hull. Wood is simply not strong enough to prevent separation between the joints, especially in the heavy seas that the Ark would have encountered. The longest wooden ships in modern seas are about 300 feet, and these require reinforcing with iron straps and leak so badly they must be constantly pumped. The ark was 450 feet long [ Gen. 6:15]. Could an ark that size be made seaworthy?
2. Gathering the Animals
Bringing all kinds of animals together in the vicinity of the ark presents significant problems.
Could animals have traveled from elsewhere? If the animals traveled from other parts of the world, many of them would have faced extreme difficulties.
Some, like sloths and penguins, can't travel overland very well at all.
Some, like koalas and many insects, require a special diet. How did they bring it along?
Some cave-dwelling arthropods can't survive in less than 100% relative humidity.
Some, like dodos, must have lived on islands. If they didn't, they would have been easy prey for other animals. When mainland species like rats or pigs are introduced to islands, they drive many indigenous species to extinction. Those species would not have been able to survive such competition if they lived where mainland species could get at them before the Flood.
Could animals have all lived near Noah? Some creationists suggest that the animals need not have traveled far to reach the Ark; a moderate climate could have made it possible for all of them to live nearby all along. However, this proposal makes matters even worse. The last point above would have applied not only to island species, but to almost all species. Competition between species would have driven most of them to extinction.
There is a reason why Gila monsters, yaks, and quetzals don't all live together in a temperate climate. They can't survive there, at least not for long without special care. Organisms have preferred environments outside of which they are at a deadly disadvantage. Most extinctions are caused by destroying the organisms' preferred environments. The creationists who propose all the species living together in a uniform climate are effectively proposing the destruction of all environments but one. Not many species could have survived that.
How was the Ark loaded? Getting all the animals aboard the Ark presents logistical problems which, while not impossible, are highly impractical. Noah had only seven days to load the Ark ( Gen. 7:4-10). If only 15764 animals were aboard the Ark (see section 3), one animal must have been loaded every 38 seconds, without letup. Since there were likely more animals to load, the time pressures would have been even worse.
3. Fitting the Animals Aboard
To determine how much space is required for animals, we must first determine what is a kind, how many kinds were aboard the ark, and how big they were.
What is a kind? Creationists themselves can't decide on an answer to this question; they propose criteria ranging from species to order, and I have even seen an entire kingdom (bacteria) suggested as a single kind. Woodmorappe (p. 5-7) compromises by using genus as a kind. However, on the ark "kind" must have meant something closer to species for three reasons:
For purposes of naming animals, the people who live among them distinguish between them (that is, give them different names) at roughly the species level. [Gould, 1980]
The Biblical "kind," according to most interpretations, implies reproductive separateness. On the ark, the purpose of gathering different kinds was to preserve them by later reproduction. Species, by definition, is the level at which animals are reproductively distinct.
The Flood, according to models, was fairly recent. There simply wouldn't have been time enough to accumulate the number of mutations necessary for the diversity of species we see within many genera today.
What kinds were aboard the ark? Woodmorappe and Whitcomb & Morris arbitrarily exclude all animals except mammals, birds, and reptiles. However, many other animals, particularly land arthropods, must also have been on the ark for two reasons:
The Bible says so. Gen. 7:8 puts on the ark all creatures that move along the ground, with no further qualifications. Lev. 11:42 includes arthropods (creatures that "walk on many feet") in such a category.
They couldn't survive outside. Gen. 7:21-23 says every land creature not aboard the ark perished. And indeed, not one insect species in a thousand could survive for half a year on the vegetation mats proposed by some creationists. Most other land arthropods, snails, slugs, earthworms, etc. would also have to be on the ark to survive.
Were dinosaurs and other extinct animals on the ark? According to the Bible, Noah took samples of all animals alive at the time of the Flood. If, as creationists claim, all fossil-bearing strata were deposited by the Flood, then all the animals which became fossils were alive then. Therefore all extinct land animals had representatives aboard the ark.
It is also worth pointing out that the number of extinct species is undoubtedly greater than the number of known extinct species. New genera of dinosaurs have been discovered at a nearly constant rate for more than a century, and there's no indication that the rate of discovery will fall off in the near future.
Were the animals aboard the ark mature? Woodmorappe gets his animals to fit only by taking juvenile pairs of everything weighing more than 22 lbs. as an adult. However, it is more likely that Noah would have brought adults aboard:
The Bible (Gen. 7:2) speaks of "the male and his mate," indicating that the animals were at sexual maturity.
Many animals require the care of adults to teach them behaviors they need for survival. If brought aboard as juveniles, these animals wouldn't have survived.
The last point does not apply to all animals. However, the animals don't need parental care tend to be animals that mature quickly, and thus would be close to adult size after a year of growth anyway.
How many clean animals were on the ark? The Bible says either seven or fourteen (it's ambiguous) of each kind of clean animal was aboard. It defines clean animals essentially as ruminants, a suborder which includes about 69 recent genera, 192 recent species [Wilson & Reeder, 1993], and probably a comparable number of extinct genera and species. That is a small percentage of the total number of species, but ruminants are among the largest mammals, so their bulk is significant.
Woodmorappe (p. 8-9) gets around the problem by citing Jewish tradition which gives only 13 domestic genera as clean. He then calculates that this would increase the total animal mass by 2-3% and decides that this amount is small enough that he can ignore it completely. However, even Jewish sources admit that this contradicts the unambiguous word of the Bible. [Steinsaltz, 1976, p. 187]
The number and size of clean birds is small enough to disregard entirely, but the Bible at one point (Gen. 7:3) says seven of all kinds of birds were aboard.
So, could they all fit? It is important to take the size of animals into account when considering how much space they would occupy because the greatest number of species occurs in the smallest animals. Woodmorappe performed such an analysis and came to the conclusion that the animals would take up 47% of the ark. In addition, he determines that about 10% of the ark was needed for food (compacted to take as little space as possible) and 9.4% for water (assuming no evaporation or wastage). At least 25% of the space would have been needed for corridors and bracing. Thus, increasing the quantity of animals by more than about 5% would overload the ark.
However, Woodmorappe makes several questionable and invalid assumptions. Here's how the points discussed above affect his analysis. Table 1 shows Woodmorappe's analysis and some additional calculations.
4. Caring for the Animals
Special diets. Many animals, especially insects, require special diets. Koalas, for example, require eucalyptus leaves, and silkworms eat nothing but mulberry leaves. For thousands of plant species (perhaps even most plants), there is at least one animal that eats only that one kind of plant. How did Noah gather all those plants aboard, and where did he put them?
Other animals are strict carnivores, and some of those specialize on certain kinds of foods, such as small mammals, insects, fish, or aquatic invertebrates. How did Noah determine and provide for all those special diets?
Fresh foods. Many animals require their food to be fresh. Many snakes, for example, will eat only live foods (or at least warm and moving). Parasitoid wasps only attack living prey. Most spiders locate their prey by the vibrations it produces. [Foelix, 1996] Most herbivorous insects require fresh food. Aphids, in fact, are physically incapable of sucking from wilted leaves. How did Noah keep all these food supplies fresh?
Food preservation/Pest control. Food spoilage is a major concern on long voyages; it was especially thus before the inventions of canning and refrigeration. The large quantities of food aboard would have invited infestations of any of hundreds of stored product pests (especially since all of those pests would have been aboard), and the humidity one would expect aboard the Ark would have provided an ideal environment for molds. How did Noah keep pests from consuming most of the food?
Ventilation. The ark would need to be well ventilated to disperse the heat, humidity, and waste products (including methane, carbon dioxide, and ammonia) from the many thousands of animals which were crowded aboard. Woodmorappe (pp. 37-42) interprets Genesis 6:16 to mean there was an 18-inch opening all around the top, and says that this, with slight breezes, would have been enough to provide adequate ventilation. However, the ark was divided into separate rooms and decks (Gen. 6:14,16). How was fresh air circulated throughout the structure?
Sanitation. The ungulates alone would have produced tons of manure a day. The waste on the lowest deck at least (and possibly the middle deck) could not simply be pushed overboard, since the deck was below the water line; the waste would have to be carried up a deck or two. Vermicomposting could reduce the rate of waste accumulation, but it requires maintenance of its own. How did such a small crew dispose of so much waste?
Exercise/Animal handling. The animals aboard the ark would have been in very poor shape unless they got regular exercise. (Imagine if you had to stay in an area the size of a closet for a year.) How were several thousand diverse kinds of animals exercised regularly?
Manpower for feeding, watering, etc. How did a crew of eight manage a menagerie larger and more diverse than that found in zoos requiring many times that many employees? Woodmorappe claims that eight people could care for 16000 animals, but he makes many unrealistic and invalid assumptions. Here are a few things he didn't take into account:
Feeding the animals would take much longer if the food was in containers to protect it from pests.
Many animals would have to be hand-fed.
Watering several animals at once via troughs would not work aboard a ship. The water would be sloshed out by the ship's roll.
Many animals, in such an artificial environment, would have required additional special care. For example, all of the hoofed animals would need to have their hooves trimmed several times during the year. [Batten, 1976, pp. 39-42]
Not all manure could be simply pushed overboard; a third of it at least would have to be carried up at least one deck.
Corpses of the dead animals would have to be removed regularly.
Animals can't be expected to run laps and return to their cages without a lot of human supervision
5. The Flood Itself
Where did the Flood water come from, and where did it go? Several people have proposed answers to these questions, but none which consider all the implications of their models. A few of the commonly cited models are addressed below.
Vapor canopy. This model, proposed by Whitcomb & Morris and others, proposes that much of the Flood water was suspended overhead until the 40 days of rain which caused the Flood. The following objections are covered in more detail by Brown.
How was the water suspended, and what caused it to fall all at once when it did?
If a canopy holding the equivalent to more than 40 feet of water were part of the atmosphere, it would raise the atmospheric pressure accordingly, raising oxygen and nitrogen levels to toxic levels.
If the canopy began as vapor, any water from it would be superheated. This scenario essentially starts with most of the Flood waters boiled off. Noah and company would be poached. If the water began as ice in orbit, the gravitational potential energy would likewise raise the temperature past boiling.
A canopy of any significant thickness would have blocked a great deal of light, lowering the temperature of the earth greatly before the Flood.
Any water above the ozone layer would not be shielded from ultraviolet light, and the light would break apart the water molecules.
Hydroplate. Walt Brown's model proposes that the Flood waters came from a layer of water about ten miles underground, which was released by a catastrophic rupture of the earth's crust, shot above the atmosphere, and fell as rain.
How was the water contained? Rock, at least the rock which makes up the earth's crust, doesn't float. The water would have been forced to the surface long before Noah's time, or Adam's time for that matter.
Even a mile deep, the earth is boiling hot, and thus the reservoir of water would be superheated. Further heat would be added by the energy of the water falling from above the atmosphere. As with the vapor canopy model, Noah would have been poached.
Where is the evidence? The escaping waters would have eroded the sides of the fissures, producing poorly sorted basaltic erosional deposits. These would be concentrated mainly near the fissures, but some would be shot thousands of miles along with the water. (Noah would have had to worry about falling rocks along with the rain.) Such deposits would be quite noticeable but have never been seen.
Comet. Kent Hovind proposed that the Flood water came from a comet which broke up and fell on the earth. Again, this has the problem of the heat from the gravitational potential energy. The water would be steam by the time it reached the surface of the earth.
Runaway subduction. John Baumgardner created the runaway subduction model, which proposes that the pre-Flood lithosphere (ocean floor), being denser than the underlying mantle, began sinking. The heat released in the process decreased the viscosity of the mantle, so the process accelerated catastrophically. All the original lithosphere became subducted; the rising magma which replaced it raised the ocean floor, causing sea levels to rise and boiling off enough of the ocean to cause 150 days of rain. When it cooled, the ocean floor lowered again, and the Flood waters receded. Sedimentary mountains such as the Sierras and Andes rose after the Flood by isostatic rebound. [Baumgardner, 1990a; Austin et al., 1994]
The main difficulty of this theory is that it admittedly doesn't work without miracles. [Baumgardner, 1990a, 1990b] The thermal diffusivity of the earth, for example, would have to increase 10,000 fold to get the subduction rates proposed [Matsumura, 1997], and miracles are also necessary to cool the new ocean floor and to raise sedimentary mountains in months rather than in the millions of years it would ordinarily take.
Baumgardner estimates a release of 1028 joules from the subduction process. This is more than enough to boil off all the oceans. In addition, Baumgardner postulates that the mantle was much hotter before the Flood (giving it greater viscosity); that heat would have to go somewhere, too.
Cenozoic sediments are post-Flood according to this model. Yet fossils from Cenozoic sediments alone show a 65-million-year record of evolution, including a great deal of the diversification of mammals and angiosperms. [Carroll, 1997, chpts. 5, 6, & 13]
Subduction on the scale Baumgardner proposes would have produced very much more vulcanism around plate boundaries than we see. [Matsumura, 1997]
New ocean basins. Most flood models (including those above, possibly excepting Hovind's) deal with the water after the flood by proposing that it became our present oceans. The earth's terrain, according to this model, was much, much flatter during the Flood, and through cataclysms, the mountains were pushed up and the ocean basins lowered. (Brown proposes that the cataclysms were caused by the crust sliding around on a cushion of water; Whitcomb & Morris don't give a cause.)
How could such a change be effected? To change the density and/or temperature of at least a quarter of the earth's crust fast enough to raise and lower the ocean floor in a matter of months would require mechanisms beyond any proposed in any of the flood models.
Why are most sediments on high ground? Most sediments are carried until the water slows down or stops. If the water stopped in the oceans, we should expect more sediments there. Baumgardner's own modeling shows that, during the Flood, currents would be faster over continents than over ocean basins [Baumgardner, 1994], so sediments should, on the whole, be removed from continents and deposited in ocean basins. Yet sediments on the ocean basin average 0.6 km thick, while on continents (including continental shelves), they average 2.6 km thick. [Poldervaart, 1955]
Where's the evidence? The water draining from the continents would have produced tremendous torrents. There is evidence of similar flooding in the Scablands of Washington state (from the draining of a lake after the breaking of an ice dam) and on the far western floor of the Mediterranean Sea (from the ocean breaking through the Straits of Gibralter). Why is such evidence not found worldwide?
How did the ark survive the process? Such a wholesale restructuring of the earth's topography, compressed into just a few months, would have produced tsunamis large enough to circle the earth. The aftershocks alone would have been devastating for years afterwards. .............
Mark Isaac
Creationist models are often criticized for being too vague to have any predictive value. A literal interpretation of the Flood story in Genesis, however, does imply certain physical consequences which can be tested against what we actually observe, and the implications of such an interpretation are investigated below. Some creationists provided even more detailed models, and these are also addressed (see especially sections 5 and 7).
References are listed at the end of each section.
Two kinds of flood model are not addressed here. First is the local flood. Genesis 6-8 can be interpreted as a homiletic story such that the "world" that was flooded was just the area that Noah knew. Creationists argue against the local flood model because it doesn't fit their own literalist preconceptions, but I know of no physical evidence contrary to such a model.
Second, the whole story can be dismissed as a series of supernatural miracles. There is no way to contradict such an argument. However, one must wonder about a God who reportedly does one thing and then arranges every bit of evidence to make it look like something else happened. It's entirely possible that a global flood occurred 4000 years ago or even last Thursday, and that God subsequently erased all the evidence, including our memories of it. But even if such stories are true, what's the point?
1. Building the Ark
Wood is not the best material for shipbuilding. It is not enough that a ship be built to hold together; it must also be sturdy enough that the changing stresses don't open gaps in its hull. Wood is simply not strong enough to prevent separation between the joints, especially in the heavy seas that the Ark would have encountered. The longest wooden ships in modern seas are about 300 feet, and these require reinforcing with iron straps and leak so badly they must be constantly pumped. The ark was 450 feet long [ Gen. 6:15]. Could an ark that size be made seaworthy?
2. Gathering the Animals
Bringing all kinds of animals together in the vicinity of the ark presents significant problems.
Could animals have traveled from elsewhere? If the animals traveled from other parts of the world, many of them would have faced extreme difficulties.
Some, like sloths and penguins, can't travel overland very well at all.
Some, like koalas and many insects, require a special diet. How did they bring it along?
Some cave-dwelling arthropods can't survive in less than 100% relative humidity.
Some, like dodos, must have lived on islands. If they didn't, they would have been easy prey for other animals. When mainland species like rats or pigs are introduced to islands, they drive many indigenous species to extinction. Those species would not have been able to survive such competition if they lived where mainland species could get at them before the Flood.
Could animals have all lived near Noah? Some creationists suggest that the animals need not have traveled far to reach the Ark; a moderate climate could have made it possible for all of them to live nearby all along. However, this proposal makes matters even worse. The last point above would have applied not only to island species, but to almost all species. Competition between species would have driven most of them to extinction.
There is a reason why Gila monsters, yaks, and quetzals don't all live together in a temperate climate. They can't survive there, at least not for long without special care. Organisms have preferred environments outside of which they are at a deadly disadvantage. Most extinctions are caused by destroying the organisms' preferred environments. The creationists who propose all the species living together in a uniform climate are effectively proposing the destruction of all environments but one. Not many species could have survived that.
How was the Ark loaded? Getting all the animals aboard the Ark presents logistical problems which, while not impossible, are highly impractical. Noah had only seven days to load the Ark ( Gen. 7:4-10). If only 15764 animals were aboard the Ark (see section 3), one animal must have been loaded every 38 seconds, without letup. Since there were likely more animals to load, the time pressures would have been even worse.
3. Fitting the Animals Aboard
To determine how much space is required for animals, we must first determine what is a kind, how many kinds were aboard the ark, and how big they were.
What is a kind? Creationists themselves can't decide on an answer to this question; they propose criteria ranging from species to order, and I have even seen an entire kingdom (bacteria) suggested as a single kind. Woodmorappe (p. 5-7) compromises by using genus as a kind. However, on the ark "kind" must have meant something closer to species for three reasons:
For purposes of naming animals, the people who live among them distinguish between them (that is, give them different names) at roughly the species level. [Gould, 1980]
The Biblical "kind," according to most interpretations, implies reproductive separateness. On the ark, the purpose of gathering different kinds was to preserve them by later reproduction. Species, by definition, is the level at which animals are reproductively distinct.
The Flood, according to models, was fairly recent. There simply wouldn't have been time enough to accumulate the number of mutations necessary for the diversity of species we see within many genera today.
What kinds were aboard the ark? Woodmorappe and Whitcomb & Morris arbitrarily exclude all animals except mammals, birds, and reptiles. However, many other animals, particularly land arthropods, must also have been on the ark for two reasons:
The Bible says so. Gen. 7:8 puts on the ark all creatures that move along the ground, with no further qualifications. Lev. 11:42 includes arthropods (creatures that "walk on many feet") in such a category.
They couldn't survive outside. Gen. 7:21-23 says every land creature not aboard the ark perished. And indeed, not one insect species in a thousand could survive for half a year on the vegetation mats proposed by some creationists. Most other land arthropods, snails, slugs, earthworms, etc. would also have to be on the ark to survive.
Were dinosaurs and other extinct animals on the ark? According to the Bible, Noah took samples of all animals alive at the time of the Flood. If, as creationists claim, all fossil-bearing strata were deposited by the Flood, then all the animals which became fossils were alive then. Therefore all extinct land animals had representatives aboard the ark.
It is also worth pointing out that the number of extinct species is undoubtedly greater than the number of known extinct species. New genera of dinosaurs have been discovered at a nearly constant rate for more than a century, and there's no indication that the rate of discovery will fall off in the near future.
Were the animals aboard the ark mature? Woodmorappe gets his animals to fit only by taking juvenile pairs of everything weighing more than 22 lbs. as an adult. However, it is more likely that Noah would have brought adults aboard:
The Bible (Gen. 7:2) speaks of "the male and his mate," indicating that the animals were at sexual maturity.
Many animals require the care of adults to teach them behaviors they need for survival. If brought aboard as juveniles, these animals wouldn't have survived.
The last point does not apply to all animals. However, the animals don't need parental care tend to be animals that mature quickly, and thus would be close to adult size after a year of growth anyway.
How many clean animals were on the ark? The Bible says either seven or fourteen (it's ambiguous) of each kind of clean animal was aboard. It defines clean animals essentially as ruminants, a suborder which includes about 69 recent genera, 192 recent species [Wilson & Reeder, 1993], and probably a comparable number of extinct genera and species. That is a small percentage of the total number of species, but ruminants are among the largest mammals, so their bulk is significant.
Woodmorappe (p. 8-9) gets around the problem by citing Jewish tradition which gives only 13 domestic genera as clean. He then calculates that this would increase the total animal mass by 2-3% and decides that this amount is small enough that he can ignore it completely. However, even Jewish sources admit that this contradicts the unambiguous word of the Bible. [Steinsaltz, 1976, p. 187]
The number and size of clean birds is small enough to disregard entirely, but the Bible at one point (Gen. 7:3) says seven of all kinds of birds were aboard.
So, could they all fit? It is important to take the size of animals into account when considering how much space they would occupy because the greatest number of species occurs in the smallest animals. Woodmorappe performed such an analysis and came to the conclusion that the animals would take up 47% of the ark. In addition, he determines that about 10% of the ark was needed for food (compacted to take as little space as possible) and 9.4% for water (assuming no evaporation or wastage). At least 25% of the space would have been needed for corridors and bracing. Thus, increasing the quantity of animals by more than about 5% would overload the ark.
However, Woodmorappe makes several questionable and invalid assumptions. Here's how the points discussed above affect his analysis. Table 1 shows Woodmorappe's analysis and some additional calculations.
4. Caring for the Animals
Special diets. Many animals, especially insects, require special diets. Koalas, for example, require eucalyptus leaves, and silkworms eat nothing but mulberry leaves. For thousands of plant species (perhaps even most plants), there is at least one animal that eats only that one kind of plant. How did Noah gather all those plants aboard, and where did he put them?
Other animals are strict carnivores, and some of those specialize on certain kinds of foods, such as small mammals, insects, fish, or aquatic invertebrates. How did Noah determine and provide for all those special diets?
Fresh foods. Many animals require their food to be fresh. Many snakes, for example, will eat only live foods (or at least warm and moving). Parasitoid wasps only attack living prey. Most spiders locate their prey by the vibrations it produces. [Foelix, 1996] Most herbivorous insects require fresh food. Aphids, in fact, are physically incapable of sucking from wilted leaves. How did Noah keep all these food supplies fresh?
Food preservation/Pest control. Food spoilage is a major concern on long voyages; it was especially thus before the inventions of canning and refrigeration. The large quantities of food aboard would have invited infestations of any of hundreds of stored product pests (especially since all of those pests would have been aboard), and the humidity one would expect aboard the Ark would have provided an ideal environment for molds. How did Noah keep pests from consuming most of the food?
Ventilation. The ark would need to be well ventilated to disperse the heat, humidity, and waste products (including methane, carbon dioxide, and ammonia) from the many thousands of animals which were crowded aboard. Woodmorappe (pp. 37-42) interprets Genesis 6:16 to mean there was an 18-inch opening all around the top, and says that this, with slight breezes, would have been enough to provide adequate ventilation. However, the ark was divided into separate rooms and decks (Gen. 6:14,16). How was fresh air circulated throughout the structure?
Sanitation. The ungulates alone would have produced tons of manure a day. The waste on the lowest deck at least (and possibly the middle deck) could not simply be pushed overboard, since the deck was below the water line; the waste would have to be carried up a deck or two. Vermicomposting could reduce the rate of waste accumulation, but it requires maintenance of its own. How did such a small crew dispose of so much waste?
Exercise/Animal handling. The animals aboard the ark would have been in very poor shape unless they got regular exercise. (Imagine if you had to stay in an area the size of a closet for a year.) How were several thousand diverse kinds of animals exercised regularly?
Manpower for feeding, watering, etc. How did a crew of eight manage a menagerie larger and more diverse than that found in zoos requiring many times that many employees? Woodmorappe claims that eight people could care for 16000 animals, but he makes many unrealistic and invalid assumptions. Here are a few things he didn't take into account:
Feeding the animals would take much longer if the food was in containers to protect it from pests.
Many animals would have to be hand-fed.
Watering several animals at once via troughs would not work aboard a ship. The water would be sloshed out by the ship's roll.
Many animals, in such an artificial environment, would have required additional special care. For example, all of the hoofed animals would need to have their hooves trimmed several times during the year. [Batten, 1976, pp. 39-42]
Not all manure could be simply pushed overboard; a third of it at least would have to be carried up at least one deck.
Corpses of the dead animals would have to be removed regularly.
Animals can't be expected to run laps and return to their cages without a lot of human supervision
5. The Flood Itself
Where did the Flood water come from, and where did it go? Several people have proposed answers to these questions, but none which consider all the implications of their models. A few of the commonly cited models are addressed below.
Vapor canopy. This model, proposed by Whitcomb & Morris and others, proposes that much of the Flood water was suspended overhead until the 40 days of rain which caused the Flood. The following objections are covered in more detail by Brown.
How was the water suspended, and what caused it to fall all at once when it did?
If a canopy holding the equivalent to more than 40 feet of water were part of the atmosphere, it would raise the atmospheric pressure accordingly, raising oxygen and nitrogen levels to toxic levels.
If the canopy began as vapor, any water from it would be superheated. This scenario essentially starts with most of the Flood waters boiled off. Noah and company would be poached. If the water began as ice in orbit, the gravitational potential energy would likewise raise the temperature past boiling.
A canopy of any significant thickness would have blocked a great deal of light, lowering the temperature of the earth greatly before the Flood.
Any water above the ozone layer would not be shielded from ultraviolet light, and the light would break apart the water molecules.
Hydroplate. Walt Brown's model proposes that the Flood waters came from a layer of water about ten miles underground, which was released by a catastrophic rupture of the earth's crust, shot above the atmosphere, and fell as rain.
How was the water contained? Rock, at least the rock which makes up the earth's crust, doesn't float. The water would have been forced to the surface long before Noah's time, or Adam's time for that matter.
Even a mile deep, the earth is boiling hot, and thus the reservoir of water would be superheated. Further heat would be added by the energy of the water falling from above the atmosphere. As with the vapor canopy model, Noah would have been poached.
Where is the evidence? The escaping waters would have eroded the sides of the fissures, producing poorly sorted basaltic erosional deposits. These would be concentrated mainly near the fissures, but some would be shot thousands of miles along with the water. (Noah would have had to worry about falling rocks along with the rain.) Such deposits would be quite noticeable but have never been seen.
Comet. Kent Hovind proposed that the Flood water came from a comet which broke up and fell on the earth. Again, this has the problem of the heat from the gravitational potential energy. The water would be steam by the time it reached the surface of the earth.
Runaway subduction. John Baumgardner created the runaway subduction model, which proposes that the pre-Flood lithosphere (ocean floor), being denser than the underlying mantle, began sinking. The heat released in the process decreased the viscosity of the mantle, so the process accelerated catastrophically. All the original lithosphere became subducted; the rising magma which replaced it raised the ocean floor, causing sea levels to rise and boiling off enough of the ocean to cause 150 days of rain. When it cooled, the ocean floor lowered again, and the Flood waters receded. Sedimentary mountains such as the Sierras and Andes rose after the Flood by isostatic rebound. [Baumgardner, 1990a; Austin et al., 1994]
The main difficulty of this theory is that it admittedly doesn't work without miracles. [Baumgardner, 1990a, 1990b] The thermal diffusivity of the earth, for example, would have to increase 10,000 fold to get the subduction rates proposed [Matsumura, 1997], and miracles are also necessary to cool the new ocean floor and to raise sedimentary mountains in months rather than in the millions of years it would ordinarily take.
Baumgardner estimates a release of 1028 joules from the subduction process. This is more than enough to boil off all the oceans. In addition, Baumgardner postulates that the mantle was much hotter before the Flood (giving it greater viscosity); that heat would have to go somewhere, too.
Cenozoic sediments are post-Flood according to this model. Yet fossils from Cenozoic sediments alone show a 65-million-year record of evolution, including a great deal of the diversification of mammals and angiosperms. [Carroll, 1997, chpts. 5, 6, & 13]
Subduction on the scale Baumgardner proposes would have produced very much more vulcanism around plate boundaries than we see. [Matsumura, 1997]
New ocean basins. Most flood models (including those above, possibly excepting Hovind's) deal with the water after the flood by proposing that it became our present oceans. The earth's terrain, according to this model, was much, much flatter during the Flood, and through cataclysms, the mountains were pushed up and the ocean basins lowered. (Brown proposes that the cataclysms were caused by the crust sliding around on a cushion of water; Whitcomb & Morris don't give a cause.)
How could such a change be effected? To change the density and/or temperature of at least a quarter of the earth's crust fast enough to raise and lower the ocean floor in a matter of months would require mechanisms beyond any proposed in any of the flood models.
Why are most sediments on high ground? Most sediments are carried until the water slows down or stops. If the water stopped in the oceans, we should expect more sediments there. Baumgardner's own modeling shows that, during the Flood, currents would be faster over continents than over ocean basins [Baumgardner, 1994], so sediments should, on the whole, be removed from continents and deposited in ocean basins. Yet sediments on the ocean basin average 0.6 km thick, while on continents (including continental shelves), they average 2.6 km thick. [Poldervaart, 1955]
Where's the evidence? The water draining from the continents would have produced tremendous torrents. There is evidence of similar flooding in the Scablands of Washington state (from the draining of a lake after the breaking of an ice dam) and on the far western floor of the Mediterranean Sea (from the ocean breaking through the Straits of Gibralter). Why is such evidence not found worldwide?
How did the ark survive the process? Such a wholesale restructuring of the earth's topography, compressed into just a few months, would have produced tsunamis large enough to circle the earth. The aftershocks alone would have been devastating for years afterwards. .............
Anton Bruckner
Puritan Board Professor
Was the flood Global
By Ken Ham, Jonathan Sarfati, and Carl Wieland, Ed. Don Batten
Many Christians today claim that the Flood of Noah´s time was only a local flood. They claim it was confined to somewhere around the Mesopotamian region and never really covered the whole earth. The discovery of a layer of mud by archaeologists in the Middle East and more recently the finding of evidence for a local flood in the Black Sea have both been claimed as evidence for a (local) biblical flood.
People generally want a local flood because they have accepted the widely believed evolutionary history of the earth, which interprets the fossils under our feet as the history of the sequential appearance of life over eons of time.
Scientists once understood the fossils (which are buried in water-carried sediments of mud and sand) to be mostly the result of the great Flood. Those who now accept the evolutionary billions of years of gradual accumulation of fossils have, in their way of thinking, explained away the evidence for the Flood"”hence their belief in a local flood, or none at all. If they would think from a biblical perspective, they would see the abundant evidence for the Flood. As someone quipped, "˜I wouldn´t have seen it if I hadn´t believed it.´
Folding of sedimentary rock without cracking or heating, such as Eastern Beach, Auckland, New Zealand, suggests the folding occurred before the sand and mud had time to turn into stone, consistent with rapid deposition during the flood of Noah (note people for scale).
Those who accept the eons of time with its fossil accumulation also, perhaps unwittingly, rob the Fall of its serious consequences. They put the fossils, which testify of disease, suffering and death before mankind appeared; before Adam and Eve sinned and brought death and suffering into the world. In doing this they also undermine the meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ. Such a scenario also robs God´s description of His finished creation as "˜very good´ of all meaning (see Did God really take six days?).
Some preachers will say they believe in a "˜universal´ or "˜worldwide´ flood, but really they do not believe that the flood covered the whole earth. They side step the clear teaching of the Bible, while giving the appearance of believing it, by cleverly redefining words. They mean "˜universal´ and "˜worldwide´ only in terms of an imagined limited extent of human habitation at the time. They imagine that people lived only (say) in a valley in Mesopotamia and so the flood could kill all the people without being global in extent.
Biblical evidence for the global Flood
The local flood idea is totally inconsistent with the Bible, as the following points demonstrate:
The need for the Ark
If the Flood were local, why did Noah have to build an Ark? He could have walked to the other side of the mountains and escaped. Traveling just 20 km per day, Noah and his family could have traveled over 3,000 km in six months. God could have simply warned Noah to flee, as He did for Lot in Sodom.
The size of the Ark
If the Flood were local, why was the Ark big enough to hold all the different kinds of land vertebrate animals in the world? If only Mesopotamian animals were aboard, or only domestic animals, the Ark could have been much smaller.1
The need for animals to be on the Ark
If the Flood were local, why did God send the animals to the Ark to escape death? There would have been other animals to reproduce those kinds even if they had all died in the local area. Or He could have sent them to a non-flooded region.
The need for birds to be on the Ark
If the Flood were local, why would birds have been sent on board? These could simply have winged across to a nearby mountain range. Birds can fly several hundred kilometers in one day.
The judgment was universal
If the Flood were local, people who did not happen to be living in the vicinity would not have been affected by it. They would have escaped God´s judgment on sin. It boggles the mind to believe that, after all those centuries since creation, no one had migrated to other parts"”or that people living on the periphery of such a local flood would not have moved to the adjoining high ground rather than be drowned. Jesus believed that the Flood killed everyone not on the Ark (Matt. 24:37"“39).
Of course those who want to believe in a local flood generally say that the world is old and that people were here for many tens of thousands of years before the Flood. If this were the case, it is inconceivable that all the people could have fitted in a localized valley in Mesopotamia, for example, or that they had not migrated further afield as the population grew.
The Flood was a type of the judgment to come
What did Christ mean when He likened the coming world judgment to the judgment of "˜all´ men (Matt. 24:37"“39) in the days of Noah? In 2 Peter 3, the coming judgment by fire is likened to the former judgment by water in Noah´s Flood. A partial judgment in Noah´s day would mean a partial judgment to come.
The waters were above the mountains
If the Flood were local, how could the waters rise to 15 cubits (8 meters) above the mountains (Gen. 7:20)? Water seeks its own level. It could not rise to cover the local mountains while leaving the rest of the world untouched.2
The duration of the Flood
Noah and company were on the Ark for one year and 10 days (Gen. 7:11, 8:14)"”surely an excessive amount of time for any local flood? It was more than seven months before the tops of any mountains became visible. How could they drift around in a local flood for that long without seeing any mountains?
God´s promise broken?
If the Flood were local, God would have repeatedly broken His promise never to send such a Flood again. There have been huge "˜local´ floods in recent times: in Bangladesh, for example, where 80% of that country has been inundated, or Europe in 2002.
All people are descendants of Noah and his family
The genealogies of Adam (Gen. 4:17"“26, 5:1"“31) and Noah (Gen. 10:1"“32) are exclusive"”they tell us that all the pre-Flood people came from Adam and all the post-Flood people came from Noah. The descendants of Noah were all living together at Babel and refusing to "˜fill the earth,´ as they had been commanded (Gen. 9:1). So God confused their one language into many and scattered them (Gen. 11:1"“9).
There is striking evidence that all peoples on earth have come from Noah, found in the Flood stories from many cultures around the world"”North and South America, South Sea Islands, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Japan, China, India, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. Hundreds of such stories have been gathered.3 The stories closest to the area of dispersion from Babel are nearest in detail to the biblical account"”for example, the Gilgamesh epic.
The Hebrew terminology of Genesis 6-94
"˜The earth´ (Heb. erets), is used 46 times in the Flood account in Genesis 6"“9, as well as in Genesis 1. The explicit link to the big picture of creation, especially in Genesis 6:6"“7, clearly implies a universal Flood. Furthermore, the judgment of God is pronounced not just on all flesh, but on the earth:
And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them. And, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. (Gen. 6:13)
"˜Upon the face of all the earth´ (Gen. 7:3, 8:9) clearly connects with the same phrase in the creation account where Adam and Eve are given the plants on Earth to eat (Gen. 1:29). Clearly, in God´s decree the mandate is universal"”the whole earth is their domain. God uses the phrase in Genesis also of the dispersal of people at the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:8,9)"”again, the context is the whole land surface of the globe. The exact phrase is used nowhere else in Genesis.
"˜Face of the ground´ used five times in the Flood account, also connects back to the universal context of creation (Gen. 2:6), again emphasizing the universality of the Flood.
"˜All flesh´ (Heb. kolbasar) is used 12 times in the Flood account and nowhere else in Genesis. God said he would destroy "˜all flesh,´ apart from those on the Ark (Gen. 6:13,17),5 and He did (Gen. 7:21"“22). In the context of the Flood, "˜all flesh´ clearly includes all nostril-breathing land animals as well as mankind"”see Genesis 7:21"“23. "˜All flesh´ could not have been confined to a Mesopotamian valley.
"˜Every living thing´ (Heb. kol chai), is again used in the Flood account (Gen. 6:19, 8:1,17) and in the creation account (Gen. 1:28). In the creation account the phrase is used in the context of Adam and Eve´s dominion over the animals. God said (Gen. 7:4) that He would destroy "˜every living thing´ He had made and this happened"”only Noah and those with him on the Ark survived (Gen. 7:23).
"˜Under the whole heaven´ (Gen. 7:19) is used six times outside of the Flood account in the Old Testament, and always with a universal meaning (Deut. 2:25, 4:19, Job 28:24, 37:3, 41:11, Daniel 9:12). For example, "˜Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine,´ said the Lord (Job 41:11).
"˜All the fountains of the great deep.´ The fountains of the great deep are mentioned only in the Flood account (Gen. 7:11, 8:2) and Proverbs 8:28. "˜The deep´ (Heb. tehom) relates back to creation (Gen. 1:2) where it refers to the one ocean covering the whole world before the land was formed. And it was not just "˜the fountains of the great deep´ but "˜all the fountains of the great deep´ which broke open.
A special Hebrew word was reserved for the Flood or Deluge: Mabbul. In every one of the 13 occasions this word is used, it refers to Noah´s Flood. Its one use outside of Genesis, Psalm 29:10, refers to the universal sovereignty of God in presiding over the Deluge. The New Testament also has a special word reserved for the Flood, cataclysmos, from which we derive our English word "˜cataclysm.´
The decrees in Genesis 9 parallel those in Genesis 1
In Genesis 9:1 God gives man the exact same commission as in Genesis 1:28"”"˜Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.´ He also gives man dominion over "˜every beast of the earth´ (Gen. 9:2, cf. 1:28) and man is instructed as to what he can and cannot eat (Gen. 9:4"“5), which parallels Genesis 1:29"“30. These decrees in Genesis 1 are universal in extent, and clearly they are also here, after the Flood. If Adam and his descendants were to rule the whole earth, so were Noah and his descendants. If "˜earth´ in Genesis 9:1 is the whole earth, as all would agree it is, then surely it is also the whole earth in the context of the Flood in Genesis 8:13!
The New Testament speaks of the Flood as global4
New Testament passages which speak of the Flood use universal language: "˜the flood came and took them all away´ (Jesus, Matt. 24:39); "˜the flood came and destroyed them all´ (Jesus, Luke 17:27); "˜did not spare the ancient world [Greek: kosmos], but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly´ (2 Peter 2:5); "˜a few, that is eight people, were saved through the water´ (1 Peter 3:20); Noah "˜condemned the world´ through his faith in God (Heb. 11:7); "˜the world that then was, being flooded by water, perished´ (2 Pet 3:6). All these statements presuppose a global Flood, not some localized event.
Objections to a global Flood
Objection 1: "˜All´ does not always mean "˜all´6
Some have argued that since "˜all´ does not always mean "˜each and every´ (e.g. Mark 1:5) that the use of "˜all´ in the Flood account does not necessarily mean the Flood was universal. That is, they claim that this use of "˜all´ allows for a local flood.
However, the meaning of a word is decided by the context. From the context of "˜all´ in Luke 2:1, for example, we can see that "˜all the world´ meant all the Roman Empire. So, it is the context that tells us that "˜all´ here does not mean every bit of the whole land surface of the globe.
However, to determine the meaning of "˜all´ in Genesis 6"“9, we must consider the context, not just transfer the inferred meaning from somewhere else.
The word "˜all´ (Heb. kol) is used 72 times in the 85 verses of Genesis 6"“9, 21% of all the times it is used in all 50 chapters of Genesis.
In Genesis 7:19 we read that "˜all (Heb. kol) the high mountains under all (Heb. kol) the heavens were covered.´ Note the double use of "˜all.´ In Hebrew this gives emphasis so as to eliminate any possibility of ambiguity.7 This could be accurately translated as "˜all the high mountains under the entire heavens,´ to reflect the emphasis in the Hebrew. Leupold, in his authoritative commentary on Genesis, said of this, "˜ "¦ the text disposes of the question of the universality of the Flood.´7
Objection 2: The post-Flood geography is the same as the pre-Flood
Because the Tigris and Euphrates rivers were mentioned in the description of the Garden of Eden, and we have the Tigris and Euphrates rivers now, some have argued that the Flood could not have altered the topography of the world, and therefore it must have been local.8
However, there are major differences in the topography described for the Garden of Eden and the world now. There was one river flowing from Eden which separated into four rivers (Gen. 2:10"“14), two of which were called the Tigris and the Euphrates. So the rivers had a common source before the Flood, which is very different from today. The other two rivers were the Pishon and the Gihon. The Pishon is not mentioned post-Flood and Gihon is used of the locality of a spring near Jerusalem in the times of Kings David, Solomon and Hezekiah.9
The post-Flood world is not the same as the pre-Flood world. Someone may ask, "˜Then why do we have a Tigris and Euphrates today?´ Answer: the same reason there is a Liverpool and Newcastle in Australia; and London, Oxford and Cambridge in North America, although they were originally place names in England. Features in the post-Flood world were given names familiar to those who survived the Flood.
Objection 3: There is no evidence for such a Flood in the geologic record
What evidence would one expect from a global watery cataclysm that drowned the animals, birds and people not on the Ark? All around the world, in rock layer after rock layer, we find billions of dead things that have been buried in water-carried mud and sand. Their state of preservation frequently tells of rapid burial and fossilization, just like one would expect in such a flood.
Fossil "˜graveyards´ around the world, where the bones of many animals were washed together, buried, and fossilized, are evidence for a watery cataclysm like Noah's flood.
There is abundant evidence that many of the rock strata were laid down quickly, one after the other, without significant time breaks between them. Preservation of animal tracks, ripple marks and even raindrop marks, testifies to rapid covering of these features to enable their preservation. Polystrate fossils (ones which traverse many strata) speak of very quick deposition of the strata. The scarcity of erosion, soil formation, animal burrows and roots between layers also shows they must have been deposited in quick succession. The radical deformation of thick layers of sediment without evidence of cracking or melting also shows how all the layers must have been still soft when they were bent. Dykes (walls) and pipes (cylinders) of sandstone which connect with the same material many layers beneath show that the layers beneath must have been still soft, and contained much water. That the sandstone could be squeezed up through cracks above to form the "˜clastic´ dykes and pipes, again shows rapid deposition of many strata.
The worldwide distribution of many geological features and rock types is also consistent with a global Flood. The Morrison Formation is a layer of sedimentary rock that extends from Texas to Canada, clearly showing the fallacy of the still popular belief that "˜the present is the key to the past´"”there are no processes occurring on Earth today that are laying down such large areas of sedimentary layers. In reality, God´s revelation about the past is the key to understanding the present.
The limited geographic extent of unconformities (clear breaks in the sequence of deposition with different tilting of layers, etc.) is also consistent with the reality of the global Flood. And there are many other evidences for the Flood.10,11
The problem is not the evidence but the mindset of those looking at the evidence. One geologist testified how he never saw any evidence for the Flood"”until, as a Christian, he was convinced from the Bible that the Flood must have been a global cataclysm. Now he sees the evidence everywhere. The Bible talks about people being corrupted in their thinking after turning their backs on God (Romans 1:18ff.) and of people being so spiritually blind that they cannot see the obvious (Acts 28:25"“27).
By Ken Ham, Jonathan Sarfati, and Carl Wieland, Ed. Don Batten
Many Christians today claim that the Flood of Noah´s time was only a local flood. They claim it was confined to somewhere around the Mesopotamian region and never really covered the whole earth. The discovery of a layer of mud by archaeologists in the Middle East and more recently the finding of evidence for a local flood in the Black Sea have both been claimed as evidence for a (local) biblical flood.
People generally want a local flood because they have accepted the widely believed evolutionary history of the earth, which interprets the fossils under our feet as the history of the sequential appearance of life over eons of time.
Scientists once understood the fossils (which are buried in water-carried sediments of mud and sand) to be mostly the result of the great Flood. Those who now accept the evolutionary billions of years of gradual accumulation of fossils have, in their way of thinking, explained away the evidence for the Flood"”hence their belief in a local flood, or none at all. If they would think from a biblical perspective, they would see the abundant evidence for the Flood. As someone quipped, "˜I wouldn´t have seen it if I hadn´t believed it.´
Folding of sedimentary rock without cracking or heating, such as Eastern Beach, Auckland, New Zealand, suggests the folding occurred before the sand and mud had time to turn into stone, consistent with rapid deposition during the flood of Noah (note people for scale).
Those who accept the eons of time with its fossil accumulation also, perhaps unwittingly, rob the Fall of its serious consequences. They put the fossils, which testify of disease, suffering and death before mankind appeared; before Adam and Eve sinned and brought death and suffering into the world. In doing this they also undermine the meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ. Such a scenario also robs God´s description of His finished creation as "˜very good´ of all meaning (see Did God really take six days?).
Some preachers will say they believe in a "˜universal´ or "˜worldwide´ flood, but really they do not believe that the flood covered the whole earth. They side step the clear teaching of the Bible, while giving the appearance of believing it, by cleverly redefining words. They mean "˜universal´ and "˜worldwide´ only in terms of an imagined limited extent of human habitation at the time. They imagine that people lived only (say) in a valley in Mesopotamia and so the flood could kill all the people without being global in extent.
Biblical evidence for the global Flood
The local flood idea is totally inconsistent with the Bible, as the following points demonstrate:
The need for the Ark
If the Flood were local, why did Noah have to build an Ark? He could have walked to the other side of the mountains and escaped. Traveling just 20 km per day, Noah and his family could have traveled over 3,000 km in six months. God could have simply warned Noah to flee, as He did for Lot in Sodom.
The size of the Ark
If the Flood were local, why was the Ark big enough to hold all the different kinds of land vertebrate animals in the world? If only Mesopotamian animals were aboard, or only domestic animals, the Ark could have been much smaller.1
The need for animals to be on the Ark
If the Flood were local, why did God send the animals to the Ark to escape death? There would have been other animals to reproduce those kinds even if they had all died in the local area. Or He could have sent them to a non-flooded region.
The need for birds to be on the Ark
If the Flood were local, why would birds have been sent on board? These could simply have winged across to a nearby mountain range. Birds can fly several hundred kilometers in one day.
The judgment was universal
If the Flood were local, people who did not happen to be living in the vicinity would not have been affected by it. They would have escaped God´s judgment on sin. It boggles the mind to believe that, after all those centuries since creation, no one had migrated to other parts"”or that people living on the periphery of such a local flood would not have moved to the adjoining high ground rather than be drowned. Jesus believed that the Flood killed everyone not on the Ark (Matt. 24:37"“39).
Of course those who want to believe in a local flood generally say that the world is old and that people were here for many tens of thousands of years before the Flood. If this were the case, it is inconceivable that all the people could have fitted in a localized valley in Mesopotamia, for example, or that they had not migrated further afield as the population grew.
The Flood was a type of the judgment to come
What did Christ mean when He likened the coming world judgment to the judgment of "˜all´ men (Matt. 24:37"“39) in the days of Noah? In 2 Peter 3, the coming judgment by fire is likened to the former judgment by water in Noah´s Flood. A partial judgment in Noah´s day would mean a partial judgment to come.
The waters were above the mountains
If the Flood were local, how could the waters rise to 15 cubits (8 meters) above the mountains (Gen. 7:20)? Water seeks its own level. It could not rise to cover the local mountains while leaving the rest of the world untouched.2
The duration of the Flood
Noah and company were on the Ark for one year and 10 days (Gen. 7:11, 8:14)"”surely an excessive amount of time for any local flood? It was more than seven months before the tops of any mountains became visible. How could they drift around in a local flood for that long without seeing any mountains?
God´s promise broken?
If the Flood were local, God would have repeatedly broken His promise never to send such a Flood again. There have been huge "˜local´ floods in recent times: in Bangladesh, for example, where 80% of that country has been inundated, or Europe in 2002.
All people are descendants of Noah and his family
The genealogies of Adam (Gen. 4:17"“26, 5:1"“31) and Noah (Gen. 10:1"“32) are exclusive"”they tell us that all the pre-Flood people came from Adam and all the post-Flood people came from Noah. The descendants of Noah were all living together at Babel and refusing to "˜fill the earth,´ as they had been commanded (Gen. 9:1). So God confused their one language into many and scattered them (Gen. 11:1"“9).
There is striking evidence that all peoples on earth have come from Noah, found in the Flood stories from many cultures around the world"”North and South America, South Sea Islands, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Japan, China, India, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. Hundreds of such stories have been gathered.3 The stories closest to the area of dispersion from Babel are nearest in detail to the biblical account"”for example, the Gilgamesh epic.
The Hebrew terminology of Genesis 6-94
"˜The earth´ (Heb. erets), is used 46 times in the Flood account in Genesis 6"“9, as well as in Genesis 1. The explicit link to the big picture of creation, especially in Genesis 6:6"“7, clearly implies a universal Flood. Furthermore, the judgment of God is pronounced not just on all flesh, but on the earth:
And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them. And, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. (Gen. 6:13)
"˜Upon the face of all the earth´ (Gen. 7:3, 8:9) clearly connects with the same phrase in the creation account where Adam and Eve are given the plants on Earth to eat (Gen. 1:29). Clearly, in God´s decree the mandate is universal"”the whole earth is their domain. God uses the phrase in Genesis also of the dispersal of people at the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:8,9)"”again, the context is the whole land surface of the globe. The exact phrase is used nowhere else in Genesis.
"˜Face of the ground´ used five times in the Flood account, also connects back to the universal context of creation (Gen. 2:6), again emphasizing the universality of the Flood.
"˜All flesh´ (Heb. kolbasar) is used 12 times in the Flood account and nowhere else in Genesis. God said he would destroy "˜all flesh,´ apart from those on the Ark (Gen. 6:13,17),5 and He did (Gen. 7:21"“22). In the context of the Flood, "˜all flesh´ clearly includes all nostril-breathing land animals as well as mankind"”see Genesis 7:21"“23. "˜All flesh´ could not have been confined to a Mesopotamian valley.
"˜Every living thing´ (Heb. kol chai), is again used in the Flood account (Gen. 6:19, 8:1,17) and in the creation account (Gen. 1:28). In the creation account the phrase is used in the context of Adam and Eve´s dominion over the animals. God said (Gen. 7:4) that He would destroy "˜every living thing´ He had made and this happened"”only Noah and those with him on the Ark survived (Gen. 7:23).
"˜Under the whole heaven´ (Gen. 7:19) is used six times outside of the Flood account in the Old Testament, and always with a universal meaning (Deut. 2:25, 4:19, Job 28:24, 37:3, 41:11, Daniel 9:12). For example, "˜Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine,´ said the Lord (Job 41:11).
"˜All the fountains of the great deep.´ The fountains of the great deep are mentioned only in the Flood account (Gen. 7:11, 8:2) and Proverbs 8:28. "˜The deep´ (Heb. tehom) relates back to creation (Gen. 1:2) where it refers to the one ocean covering the whole world before the land was formed. And it was not just "˜the fountains of the great deep´ but "˜all the fountains of the great deep´ which broke open.
A special Hebrew word was reserved for the Flood or Deluge: Mabbul. In every one of the 13 occasions this word is used, it refers to Noah´s Flood. Its one use outside of Genesis, Psalm 29:10, refers to the universal sovereignty of God in presiding over the Deluge. The New Testament also has a special word reserved for the Flood, cataclysmos, from which we derive our English word "˜cataclysm.´
The decrees in Genesis 9 parallel those in Genesis 1
In Genesis 9:1 God gives man the exact same commission as in Genesis 1:28"”"˜Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.´ He also gives man dominion over "˜every beast of the earth´ (Gen. 9:2, cf. 1:28) and man is instructed as to what he can and cannot eat (Gen. 9:4"“5), which parallels Genesis 1:29"“30. These decrees in Genesis 1 are universal in extent, and clearly they are also here, after the Flood. If Adam and his descendants were to rule the whole earth, so were Noah and his descendants. If "˜earth´ in Genesis 9:1 is the whole earth, as all would agree it is, then surely it is also the whole earth in the context of the Flood in Genesis 8:13!
The New Testament speaks of the Flood as global4
New Testament passages which speak of the Flood use universal language: "˜the flood came and took them all away´ (Jesus, Matt. 24:39); "˜the flood came and destroyed them all´ (Jesus, Luke 17:27); "˜did not spare the ancient world [Greek: kosmos], but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly´ (2 Peter 2:5); "˜a few, that is eight people, were saved through the water´ (1 Peter 3:20); Noah "˜condemned the world´ through his faith in God (Heb. 11:7); "˜the world that then was, being flooded by water, perished´ (2 Pet 3:6). All these statements presuppose a global Flood, not some localized event.
Objections to a global Flood
Objection 1: "˜All´ does not always mean "˜all´6
Some have argued that since "˜all´ does not always mean "˜each and every´ (e.g. Mark 1:5) that the use of "˜all´ in the Flood account does not necessarily mean the Flood was universal. That is, they claim that this use of "˜all´ allows for a local flood.
However, the meaning of a word is decided by the context. From the context of "˜all´ in Luke 2:1, for example, we can see that "˜all the world´ meant all the Roman Empire. So, it is the context that tells us that "˜all´ here does not mean every bit of the whole land surface of the globe.
However, to determine the meaning of "˜all´ in Genesis 6"“9, we must consider the context, not just transfer the inferred meaning from somewhere else.
The word "˜all´ (Heb. kol) is used 72 times in the 85 verses of Genesis 6"“9, 21% of all the times it is used in all 50 chapters of Genesis.
In Genesis 7:19 we read that "˜all (Heb. kol) the high mountains under all (Heb. kol) the heavens were covered.´ Note the double use of "˜all.´ In Hebrew this gives emphasis so as to eliminate any possibility of ambiguity.7 This could be accurately translated as "˜all the high mountains under the entire heavens,´ to reflect the emphasis in the Hebrew. Leupold, in his authoritative commentary on Genesis, said of this, "˜ "¦ the text disposes of the question of the universality of the Flood.´7
Objection 2: The post-Flood geography is the same as the pre-Flood
Because the Tigris and Euphrates rivers were mentioned in the description of the Garden of Eden, and we have the Tigris and Euphrates rivers now, some have argued that the Flood could not have altered the topography of the world, and therefore it must have been local.8
However, there are major differences in the topography described for the Garden of Eden and the world now. There was one river flowing from Eden which separated into four rivers (Gen. 2:10"“14), two of which were called the Tigris and the Euphrates. So the rivers had a common source before the Flood, which is very different from today. The other two rivers were the Pishon and the Gihon. The Pishon is not mentioned post-Flood and Gihon is used of the locality of a spring near Jerusalem in the times of Kings David, Solomon and Hezekiah.9
The post-Flood world is not the same as the pre-Flood world. Someone may ask, "˜Then why do we have a Tigris and Euphrates today?´ Answer: the same reason there is a Liverpool and Newcastle in Australia; and London, Oxford and Cambridge in North America, although they were originally place names in England. Features in the post-Flood world were given names familiar to those who survived the Flood.
Objection 3: There is no evidence for such a Flood in the geologic record
What evidence would one expect from a global watery cataclysm that drowned the animals, birds and people not on the Ark? All around the world, in rock layer after rock layer, we find billions of dead things that have been buried in water-carried mud and sand. Their state of preservation frequently tells of rapid burial and fossilization, just like one would expect in such a flood.
Fossil "˜graveyards´ around the world, where the bones of many animals were washed together, buried, and fossilized, are evidence for a watery cataclysm like Noah's flood.
There is abundant evidence that many of the rock strata were laid down quickly, one after the other, without significant time breaks between them. Preservation of animal tracks, ripple marks and even raindrop marks, testifies to rapid covering of these features to enable their preservation. Polystrate fossils (ones which traverse many strata) speak of very quick deposition of the strata. The scarcity of erosion, soil formation, animal burrows and roots between layers also shows they must have been deposited in quick succession. The radical deformation of thick layers of sediment without evidence of cracking or melting also shows how all the layers must have been still soft when they were bent. Dykes (walls) and pipes (cylinders) of sandstone which connect with the same material many layers beneath show that the layers beneath must have been still soft, and contained much water. That the sandstone could be squeezed up through cracks above to form the "˜clastic´ dykes and pipes, again shows rapid deposition of many strata.
The worldwide distribution of many geological features and rock types is also consistent with a global Flood. The Morrison Formation is a layer of sedimentary rock that extends from Texas to Canada, clearly showing the fallacy of the still popular belief that "˜the present is the key to the past´"”there are no processes occurring on Earth today that are laying down such large areas of sedimentary layers. In reality, God´s revelation about the past is the key to understanding the present.
The limited geographic extent of unconformities (clear breaks in the sequence of deposition with different tilting of layers, etc.) is also consistent with the reality of the global Flood. And there are many other evidences for the Flood.10,11
The problem is not the evidence but the mindset of those looking at the evidence. One geologist testified how he never saw any evidence for the Flood"”until, as a Christian, he was convinced from the Bible that the Flood must have been a global cataclysm. Now he sees the evidence everywhere. The Bible talks about people being corrupted in their thinking after turning their backs on God (Romans 1:18ff.) and of people being so spiritually blind that they cannot see the obvious (Acts 28:25"“27).
Anton Bruckner
Puritan Board Professor
sorry for the above clutter. But I want for us to have at least a visible reference point concerning the pros and cons of either side.
My position is that, "All" in many cases as used in the Bible does connote Regionalism instead of Globalism. Of which the Regional is deemed the world since God considers it to be the object of His present undertaking. i.e Revelation and Matthew 24, Isaiah and Daniel in relation to Cyrus and Nebuchadnezzer.
While it is a very significant point that 2000 years after the creation of man was enough time for the population to reach into the hundreds of millions likewise for man to spread out throughout the whole earth. I think the spreading out of mankind would necessitate knowledge of shipbuilding, if we are to concede that in the least that waterways existed.
I don't think that these guys would have laughed at Noah and scoffed at him at the building of the Ark. Maybe laugh at him for saying rain would fall, but to laugh at him for building an Ark, of which Oceanic travel was common would be unbecoming of those guys.
But then again man could have spread out throughout the whole world, if the world's topography of today did not exist back then. One Giant landmass with a few rivers, watered from well springs beneath and the water canopy above.
My position is that, "All" in many cases as used in the Bible does connote Regionalism instead of Globalism. Of which the Regional is deemed the world since God considers it to be the object of His present undertaking. i.e Revelation and Matthew 24, Isaiah and Daniel in relation to Cyrus and Nebuchadnezzer.
While it is a very significant point that 2000 years after the creation of man was enough time for the population to reach into the hundreds of millions likewise for man to spread out throughout the whole earth. I think the spreading out of mankind would necessitate knowledge of shipbuilding, if we are to concede that in the least that waterways existed.
I don't think that these guys would have laughed at Noah and scoffed at him at the building of the Ark. Maybe laugh at him for saying rain would fall, but to laugh at him for building an Ark, of which Oceanic travel was common would be unbecoming of those guys.
But then again man could have spread out throughout the whole world, if the world's topography of today did not exist back then. One Giant landmass with a few rivers, watered from well springs beneath and the water canopy above.
Puritan Sailor
Puritan Board Doctor
The issue was not necessarily that Noah was building an ark, but why Noah was building the ark. He was a preacher of righteousness. He was letting the world know that coming destruction was immanent. And they in unbelief refused to acknowledge that.
Also, sure there are places where "all doesn't mean all" but there are places where in Scripture where "all does mean all." In this passage in Gen. is one of them.
Plus, you have yet to deal with the consequences, in light of the covenant God made with Noah and the earth, to never again destroy the earth with a flood. If it's regional then God has broken his covenant. And, the promise to regulate the seasons, and days, seed time and harvest, etc. is not a regional blessing, but global.
Some things for you to consider.
Also, sure there are places where "all doesn't mean all" but there are places where in Scripture where "all does mean all." In this passage in Gen. is one of them.
Plus, you have yet to deal with the consequences, in light of the covenant God made with Noah and the earth, to never again destroy the earth with a flood. If it's regional then God has broken his covenant. And, the promise to regulate the seasons, and days, seed time and harvest, etc. is not a regional blessing, but global.
Some things for you to consider.
Joseph Ringling
Puritan Board Freshman
Global.
Global. For reasons others have stated well already.
kevin.carroll
Puritan Board Junior
Global. If water seeks its own level, and it does, then it would be impossible for the biblical record to be accurate and the flood to have been regional.
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