The Case for the Global Flood

[Banky]

Out of curiosity, have the global flood proponents answered the question as to how two of each of the almost 2 million species of animals fit on the Ark? What did the plant eaters eat? Did Noah bring on extra animals so the carnivores could eat during the 40 days they were on water? How did Noah find all of the animals? Did they all live in the same place back then, but then decided to spread to different parts of the world (penquins swam to Antarctica, polar bears to the north pole, turkeys, bald eagles, and grizzly bears crossed the atlantic to get to the Americas). Did he go into the canopies of the jungles and find all the insects.....even the ones that we hadn't found since then until very recently?

[Jac3510]

I've done a bit of looking and haven't come up with anything in my ten brief minutes of searching, so I'll just ask: what is the suggested date for the flood, local and global?

[August]

Banky, just curious, what is your source for 2 million species that was supposed to go on the ark?

[Fortigurn]

I've done a bit of looking and haven't come up with anything in my ten brief minutes of searching, so I'll just ask: what is the suggested date for the flood, local and global?

I go for around 2,900 BC for a local Mesopotamian flood.

[Gman]

I've done a bit of looking and haven't come up with anything in my ten brief minutes of searching, so I'll just ask: what is the suggested date for the flood, local and global?

I go for around 2,900 BC for a local Mesopotamian flood.

As for the dating of human origins and the flood, OEC puts it anywhere between 10,000 - 50,000 years..

Source: http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/sld011.html

Fortigurn, I've been kicking around the area for the local flood for some time now. Just recently as last week I found some pretty convincing evidence that might put this local flood in the Mesopotamian plains just as you have been stating. Perhaps I will share it next week.

[Jac3510]

I am going to have to keep looking, but I have found a plethora of websites and articles arguing that the Flood happened between 2300 and 3000 BC. I only found one brief argument for a date around 10,000 BC. I haven't seen a suggested date for the flood from Rich at all. I'm about to check RTB.

You would think the OEC model would consider it fairly important to offer a date for this event . . .

edit: OK . . . I can't find anything date-wise on a local flood, and now I have serious questions. According to Rich, the art found in the Grotte Chauvet caves (which are in France) was produced by modern humans, and that dates to about 32,000 years ago. He also attributes the to modern humans the oldest known shrine, which dates to some 20,000 years ago, and that in Spain. Also, while browsing through Wikipedia, I found an article on the Clovis culture, which "is a prehistoric Native American culture that first appears in the archaeological record of North America around 11,000 years ago."

So it looks to me like we have homo sapien sapiens in Europe, America, Asia, Africa, and even Australia by between 30,000 and 10,000 BC. Wouldn't that require a local flood to be dated before at best before 10,000 BC, and more likely before 30,000 BC?

[Fortigurn]

I've done a bit of looking and haven't come up with anything in my ten brief minutes of searching, so I'll just ask: what is the suggested date for the flood, local and global?

I go for around 2,900 BC for a local Mesopotamian flood.

As for the dating of human origins and the flood, OEC puts it anywhere between 10,000 - 50,000 years..

Source: http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/sld011.html

I'm OEC, and I put it at 2,900 BC on the basis of the archaeological evidence.

Fortigurn, I've been kicking around the area for the local flood for some time now. Just recently as last week I found some pretty convincing evidence that might put this local flood in the Mesopotamian plains just as you have been stating. Perhaps I will share it next week.

It wasn't this was it?

[Fortigurn]

So it looks to me like we have homo sapien sapiens in Europe, America, Asia, Africa, and even Australia by between 30,000 and 10,000 BC. Wouldn't that require a local flood to be dated before at best before 10,000 BC, and more likely before 30,000 BC?

I'm going to cut to the chase and suggest you're looking at Genesis 1:26 when you should be looking at Genesis 4:16-17. We need to go where the evidence leads.

[Jac3510]

Yes, but I believe you hold to the idea that there were other human beings on earth, and that Adam is not the father of all men, but only of the covenant people, right?

Now, if I am right ont hat, then to be honest, I don't have any interest in that position nor any arguments about the flood relating to it. I do know, however, that the majority of the people on these boards hold to the orthodox view that Adam was the father of all men.

So, I am still asking to those of you advocating a local flood: if human beings were living in countries as far away as Spain as early as 32,000 years ago, then how can you say the flood was local?

[Kurieuo]

Yes, but I believe you hold to the idea that there were other human beings on earth, and that Adam is not the father of all men, but only of the covenant people, right?

Now, if I am right ont hat, then to be honest, I don't have any interest in that position nor any arguments about the flood relating to it. I do know, however, that the majority of the people on these boards hold to the orthodox view that Adam was the father of all men.

So, I am still asking to those of you advocating a local flood: if human beings were living in countries as far away as Spain as early as 32,000 years ago, then how can you say the flood was local?

The general position I have come to understand is that migrations happened at various periods depending on the interconnection of continents when land bridges existed. I think it would be interesting to see an organisation such a RTB put together dates on migration periods out of Mesopotamia.

Quite some years ago, I either read or heard Hugh Ross placing the timing of the flood at about 11,000-13,000 years ago. I may be wrong. But if people had been dispersed across the world at 30,000BC, the flood in a Day-Age position would need to be put before 30,000BC. The flood in the Biblical narrative is positioned rather early in the history of humanity, so I do not think OECs should be surprised if the flood needs pushing back to even 40,000-45,000 years ago. I would begin feeling uncomfortable going any further though.

[Jac3510]

That's what my point is, K. A local flood is going to require a very, very early date. 3000 BC isn't going to cut it. I'd like to see someone put together a scenario, because right now, one doesn't exist that I can find.

[Kurieuo]

Is there something wrong with an early date? Keep in mind Day-Age advocate an upper limit of about 60,000 years ago for the origin of humanity.

[Gman]

Quite some years ago, I either read or heard Hugh Ross placing the timing of the flood at about 11,000-13,000 years ago. I may be wrong. But if people had been dispersed across the world at 30,000BC, the flood in a Day-Age position would need to be put before 30,000BC. The flood in the Biblical narrative is positioned rather early in the history of humanity, so I do not think OECs should be surprised if the flood needs pushing back to even 40,000-45,000 years ago. I would begin feeling uncomfortable going any further though.

Here is one quote from RTB. This is from Hugh's book, "A Matter of Days."

"Using the relatively accurate dates available for both Abram (Abraham) and Peleg to calibrate the genealogies may help guide some of the guesswork. Biblical and other historical records establish that Abraham lived about 4,000 years ago. Genesis 10:25 says that in Peleg's time "the earth was divided." Radiocarbon dating places the breaking of the Bering land bridge (an event that ended human migration from Eurasia to North and South America until the advent of ships) at 11,000 years ago. If the life spans recorded in the Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies are approximately proportional to the actual passage of time, then the dates for Abraham and Peleg would place the Flood of Noah's day roughly 20,000 to 30,000 years ago and the creation of Adam and Eve a few tens of thousands of years earlier."

[Fortigurn]

Yes, but I believe you hold to the idea that there were other human beings on earth, and that Adam is not the father of all men, but only of the covenant people, right?

I don't hold to it, though I am open to the idea.

Now, if I am right ont hat, then to be honest, I don't have any interest in that position nor any arguments about the flood relating to it. I do know, however, that the majority of the people on these boards hold to the orthodox view that Adam was the father of all men.

I'm going to suggest, with respect, that it's dangerous to close your mind to an interpretation which explains the difficulty over which theologians have wrestled for centuries. Until Darwin, theologians could not comprehend any rational justification for accepting Genesis 4:16-17 as it stood. Great wrestling with the text had to take place, in order to reconcile it with the conventional interpretation of Genesis 1:26. It was well recognised that Genesis 4:16-17 implies that Adam and Eve were not the first humans. But since there was no evidence otherwise, the conventional interpretation of Genesis 1:26 was upheld, and Genesis 4:16-17 was glossed over, ignored, or explained away.

Certainly there were Christian (and probably Jewish), commentators who suggested taking Genesis 4:16-17 seriously, but they were in the minority. Geological and archaeological discoveries of ancient man provided additional information that Genesis 4:16-17 should be treated respectfully, instead of being told to go and stand in the corner. But the real watershed was Darwin, of course. Suddenly it seemed that Genesis 4:16-17 had been right all along, and that Adam and Eve weren't the only humans on the planet at the time that they were created. If Christians had capitalized more on the fact that the Bible had beat science to the punch by about 3,000 years, then perhaps Christianity would still have the edge over people like Dawkins, whose mouths would have been shut.

It's worth pointing out that the Genesis creation is the only creation story (I can think of), in which the creation of certain ancestral humans is accompanied by the direct statement that humans already existed (Cain's wife). This is information which would not have been available to a human writer, and as we can see, if a human writer had been writing the creation story they would intuitively have determined (incorrectly), that any ancestral humans must have been the very first and only humans on the planet. This places the Genesis creation in a category of agreement with science which no other creation story has, and must surely give reason to think to those who wish to dismiss Genesis 1-3 as 'Yet another funny creation myth'.

Christian apologists have long had problems fitting Cain's wife into their existing paradigm. I suggest this may be because the paradigm was incorrect. The natural reading is not a problem if the paradigm is changed. A paradigm change is a superior solution to abandoning the natural reading. The fact that science may have discovered the answer behind the natural reading would simply confirm that the Bible was ahead of the scientists all along (same with Babel, and the fact that the earth was already widely populated), and that is a significant contribution to the argument for inspiration and the literality of the Genesis account.

So, I am still asking to those of you advocating a local flood: if human beings were living in countries as far away as Spain as early as 32,000 years ago, then how can you say the flood was local?

This is the problem. If the purpose of the flood was to kill all humans, then the flood had to be global (no matter when it was). Global floods have obvious geological and archaeological problems. If the purpose of the flood was judgment on the covenant community (as I believe it was), then a local flood is a necessary consequence.

In this case you're driven to a global flood on the basis of having to reconcile the available scientific evidence with a particular interpretation of Genesis 1:26. Unfortunately, having resolved the conflict with Genesis 1:26 you then find you've created a conflict between the available scientific evidence and the flood narrative. It seems clear you can't have it both ways.

What I am seeing here is that a particular interpretation of Genesis 1:26 not only causes interpretative difficulties with Genesis 4:16-17 and Genesis 10, but also causes conflict between available scientific evidence on the one hand, and the flood narrative, the dispersion of Noah's sons, and the tower of Babel on the other. I suggest that if the interpretation of a single verse is causing so many difficulties with other Biblical passages and with the available scientific evidence, then the time has certainly come to question that interpretation.

[Kurieuo]

Quite some years ago, I either read or heard Hugh Ross placing the timing of the flood at about 11,000-13,000 years ago. I may be wrong. But if people had been dispersed across the world at 30,000BC, the flood in a Day-Age position would need to be put before 30,000BC. The flood in the Biblical narrative is positioned rather early in the history of humanity, so I do not think OECs should be surprised if the flood needs pushing back to even 40,000-45,000 years ago. I would begin feeling uncomfortable going any further though.

Here is one quote from RTB. This is from Hugh's book, "A Matter of Days."

"Using the relatively accurate dates available for both Abram (Abraham) and Peleg to calibrate the genealogies may help guide some of the guesswork. Biblical and other historical records establish that Abraham lived about 4,000 years ago. Genesis 10:25 says that in Peleg's time "the earth was divided." Radiocarbon dating places the breaking of the Bering land bridge (an event that ended human migration from Eurasia to North and South America until the advent of ships) at 11,000 years ago. If the life spans recorded in the Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies are approximately proportional to the actual passage of time, then the dates for Abraham and Peleg would place the Flood of Noah's day roughly 20,000 to 30,000 years ago and the creation of Adam and Eve a few tens of thousands of years earlier."

Thanks Gman.

I actually purchased that book about a year or so ago for the very reason I knew it had more details as to such dates. I forgot however until now that this was why I wanted to purchase it (I usually keep a list of books to get, and then forget why I wanted them ). I guess it will be my next read now.

The proportion of genealogies to time that Ross mentions is why I would be uncomfortable to push it beyond say 40,000 years ago. It would feel like I am more trying to force a fit with time and the genealogies, rather than them fitting together more naturally.