Noah’s Flood
Back to our creation/bible series. The picture above shows the likely natural boundaries of the flood based on topography. The mountains of Ararat are near 11 to 12 o’clock on the circle
It wasn’t a global flood
The second elephant in the room for the Young Earth Creationists (YEC) linked to the first (see last month) is the insistence on the flood being global.
If the flood isn’t global, you only have to fit the local animals into the Ark, not all the animals in the world! Whew! That is now feasible. All the local species can fit in without have to resort to mythical family prototypes. For example, you don’t need kangaroos because they are alive and dry in Australia.
Theologically and scientifically, the flood couldn’t have been global.
Theologically, in Genesis chapter 1, we know that the whole earth was covered in water and only during the third day or era – in Hebrew ‘day’ can mean 24 hours or an era – did dry land appear. Psalm 104 is another creation account that talks about the waters covering the mountains and then boundaries for the water were put in place to allow dry land. Interestingly, God made a promise that water would never again cover the earth “You set a boundary they cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth.” Psalm 104:9 In Job 38 we have another creation account and verse 8 to 11 repeat the same promise never to flood the earth globally again. Jeremiah 5:22 talks about the sea having the seashore as an everlasting boundary it cannot cross. So a global flood in the time of Noah would make God a liar.
What about, referring to the Flood, the Bible says, “All the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered” (Gen 7:19-20), and repeatedly, “All flesh” and “Everything on earth perished” (Gen 7:21-23) and “All life” (Gen 9:12-17)? Surely there can be no other interpretation than a global flood.
“All” can mean “All known to the author” as we see later in the same book, “All the world came to Egypt for grain” (Gen 41:57). There is no question that all of humanity was destroyed except those on the Ark, and all the mountains in the region were covered.
Scientifically, it is not possible for the following reasons:
- No global sediment layer, however a definite sediment layer present throughout the Mesopotamian region.
- The fossil record shows a precise layering of animals of increasing complexity not a chaotic jumble.
- Saltwater and freshwater would mix, killing most aquatic life.
- As the verse above indicates, high mountains existed at the time. Even if we exclude Everest, covering the entire earth with water to the height of the lowest mountains of Ararat, 12,782 feet, would require an additional one and a half times the amount water that exists on earth today! Because the water cycle means that this excess water will never subside due to evaporation, the principle way it can diminish is being deposited as ice. Even with several ice ages, that would take hundreds of thousands to several million years. Definitely not the one year it took to for the water to diminish for Noah. A local flood is the only feasible solution.
NOTE: Even if we assume it was just 1000 feet of water that was deposited by the flood. It would still take tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years for the water level to drop enough to expose dry land.