Fact or Fiction?
During the past few hundred years, the credibility of the Bible has come under
serious question.
Many have found it difficult to believe in a book which speaks of Jonah and the "whale"; an extra-long day in the time of Joshua; Christ walking on water; Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego surviving the fiery furnace; Adam and Eve; the Israelites crossing the Red Sea; and a host of similar accounts written in a positive, it-actually-did-happen fashion.
Perhaps the long biblical account of Noah's Flood in Genesis has evoked more questions than any other. Is it unreasonable to believe in the Flood? In the Ark? Have modern scientific findings truly made the scriptural account out of date?
While the many ramifications of the Flood cannot be discussed in a short article, this article will examine the main objections to the biblical Flood and the Ark. We will see that the Bible is consistent with other fields of knowledge. Scripture is reasonable!
Let's examine the various major questions voiced about Genesis 6-9 and see how recent data actually verifies this ancient record
Was the Flood Local?
It is not the purpose of this
article to present a comprehensive biblical exegesis on the universality
of the Flood. However, to assume anything else is clearly contrary to the
weight of biblical revelation and reason. The need for a sea-going
Ark is a compelling reason to believe in the Flood's intercontinental effects.
Why command Noah to build an Ark when he could have simply migrated to a
non-flooded region? Neither would it make sense to take animal
representatives of all kinds aboard the Ark if only a limited area of the earth
were to be inundated (Gen. 6:19-20).
The specific reason for the Flood was to destroy all air-breathing land life -
especially man himself (Gen. 6:17). Archaeology demonstrates that man had
migrated around the world. Anything less than a universal destruction would not
have accomplished God's primary purpose of the Flood.
So it is logical to believe that the Flood was of universal scope when both
Scripture and reason are considered.
Where Do You Get Enough Water?
But what, then, of the origin of the Flood waters? Is there enough water
on the earth to entirely cover it?
If one observes a globe carefully, he might come to the conclusion that "earth"
is an inapt name. For instead of being mainly terra-firma its
surface is over 71 percent water. We live on a watery planet.
In addition, bear in mind the
oceans average 12,450 feet in depth, while the average surface height of the
land is only 2,600 feet. The proportion is clearly overwhelmingly in favour of
the ocean and not the land.
We are not told in the Bible exactly how God flooded the earth. Remember
the flood was not a natural event. It was brought on supernaturally by
God, though He used natural agents.
What are the natural facilities God could have used in accomplishing His purpose? Here are some of possibilities: 1) Elevate the ocean basins and thus force water onto the land, 2) lower the continents as units, or 3) add water to the oceans from underground basins (see Scientific American, May 1966, article, "Water Under the Sahara.") God undoubtedly used a combination of factors to bring about His will. In the same way, when the Flood waters receded, they would have drained back into the place God made for them - the ocean basins and underground reservoirs.
What About "All Those Animals"?
Did the Ark have sufficient capacity to carry representatives of all the
land animals?
Consider the stated size of the
Ark. "The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it
fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits" (Gen. 6:15). Historical
records for the exact length of the cubit in modern terms are vague. Our
research places it at around 22.5 inches. If valid, this would
mean the Ark was 563 feet long, 94 feet wide, and 56 feet high.
Its three-million cubic foot volume would have a displacement in water weight of
66,000 tons. This is the same capacity as 1000 railroad trucks 6,000 tons.
That's ocean-liner size!
But if the cubit were equivalent to 18 inches, there would still have been plenty of room in its 450 foot length, 75 foot breadth, and 45 foot height hulk. This would still have given it a 500 freight car, 1.5 million cubic feet carrying capacity. It was not until the 19th century that larger vessels were constructed. It shows the existence of skilled knowledge and ability in that ancient world not again demonstrated until recent times. Archaeologists are confirming this generally unexpected level of knowledge as they find more and more evidence of advanced skills among early humans. (See such books as Mysteries from Forgotten Worlds by Charles Berlitz, Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1972.)
How much room did Noah need for
"all those animals"? Some misunderstand, thinking that the Ark had to house
representatives of every variety of animals. One pair of every KIND of
unclean (inedible) and seven pairs of each clean KIND (edible) were taken
aboard. Each "kind" of creature represented a number of varieties. For example,
over 100 breeds of dogs have now been developed. They are all of the same
Genesis "kind." Only one pair of the dog kind needed to be on the Ark.
God originally put within each "kind" of creature a fantastic genetic
capability. As time passed more and more varieties appeared, but these
variations of the same "kind" of creature did not all have to be aboard the Ark
bodily. They were there genetically within the pair (or seven pairs, as the case
may be) taken on the Ark.
It isn't necessary to consider sea life. It
survived in the Flood waters. There were also many other simple
forms of aquatic life that were not harmed by water. Consider that some 60 percent of
the animal kingdom live in the sea, and 28 percent of the animal
kingdom are insects The remaining 12 percent average the size of a rhesus
monkey.
If insects had to be taken on the Ark (and this is a moot
question), with every pair of known modern species of insect given 16 cubic
inches of space, only 21 freight cars of space would be required. (Counting
Genesis kinds only, the required space is far less.)
Accurate estimates of the number of
mammal, bird, reptile and amphibian species on earth today is about 18,000.
(Again, recognizing that only kinds, not necessarily species, were included,
there would have been far fewer actual animals aboard the ark.) Most animals are
unclean, and there were a pair of each unclean animal. But let's be liberal and
say 40,000 rhesus-monkey-size animals were on the Ark. How much space would be required to
house them? A letter about animal housing was sent to the London Zoo. Their
answer was: "Most animals can be maintained in very close confinement indeed for
long periods and remain perfectly healthy. A rhesus monkey, say, can be
maintained indefinitely in a cage about 2 ft. 6 inches cubed" (15 cubic feet). If the cubit were 22.5 inches
long, 40.000 cages, each large enough for a rhesus monkey. would have only
taken up 20 percent of the Ark's three million cubic feet carrying
capacity. So it becomes plain that the interior of the Ark was totally
adequate for the animals, the food supply, and the humans aboard it during the
Flood.
How Did the Animals Get Where They Are Today?
Each isolated land mass or continent
Consider that God - not Noah - originally brought the animals to the Ark (Gen. 6:20). It would not have been a difficult matter for Him to see to it that they also redistributed themselves after the Flood. God is the Originator of animal migration. It was His will that the animals - as well as mankind - replenish and repopulate limited geographical realms after the Flood (Gen. 9:1; 10:5; 11:8-9). It should be no surprise to see both men and animals even today basically segregated around the world. This principle ought to seem basic. All forms of life exist in the specific land areas where they can best flourish.
Neither are the major land masses of the earth as isolated as
one might suppose. They have been even less isolated in the past. Witness the
existing land bridge between Asia and Africa - the Sinai Peninsula - and Central
America between the North and South American continents. The Bering Straits
between North America and Asia are quite shallow. Thousands of square miles are covered by water less then 150 feet deep.
Large areas of present ocean, between South-eastern Asia, the East Indies, and
Australia are less than 600 feet deep. This illustrates that such present-day isolated
communities are not impossibly separated from each other by great expanses of
deep ocean. This factor may play a part in animal migration after the Flood.
Also, as men travel and migrate, they traditionally take with
them familiar plants and animals. Some go with them accidentally. Many animals
have spread to new areas in this manner - the rabbit to Australia, the English
sparrow and European corn borer to the Americas, etc.
Recent discoveries are showing that much sea traffic existed in the ancient world. The Bible itself shows that Solomon's ships plied the seas and brought back precious items and animals to the Middle East from great distances (I Kings 9:26-28; 10:22; II Chronicles. 9:10). It is logical to conclude that animals were shipped between other areas as well. It has also been demonstrated that animals have reached isolated islands on floating masses of vegetation or on storm and flood debris. Whenever an island emerges from the sea, it soon becomes the home of various sorts of animals and plants.
Where Is the Flood
in Geology?
Prior to the nineteenth century it was commonly believed the
Flood was responsible for practically all geologic phenomena. Whenever a fossil
was found, the finder would immediately think of Noah's Flood. But soon cracks
in the idea developed. If Noah's Flood was truly responsible for most or all of
the earth's fossils, then why isn't the fossil record thoroughly mixed up?Why do certain layers only contain
certain fossils? Why, for example,
aren't dinosaur remains ever found mixed with tigers, lions and other mammal life? Mammal remains are a1most entirely missing
from the world of in "terrible lizards."
This enigma multiplies when one considers that the
stratigraphic record can only be understood to represent a passage of time
greater than the year of Noah's Flood. The bulk of the geologic record
represents a sequence of events which cannot be fitted into the short time span of the Flood itself.
For this reason, there was often a difference of opinion
among theologians and nineteenth-century Bible believing scientists as to where
the evidence of the Flood is to be found in the rocks. Estimates have ranged
from the entire geologic column to a thin clay layer at the site of ancient Ur!
(Sir Leonard Woolley, Excavations at Ur, London, Ernest Bonn, Ltd.,
1954.)
A proper understanding must begin with a knowledge of both
the Bible and the earth's silent, yet revealing, fossil record. The avowed purpose of God in the Flood was to destroy both
man and beast from the face of the earth. This is clearly the reason God sent a
flood of waters. It was a time of great extinction. This is the first
vital clue. But we also need to remember that the Flood was a relatively
recent event. Biblical chronology would place it about 43 centuries ago.
Therefore we should expect to find the evidence for the Flood towards the top
of the earth's layered sequence.
The third clue involves man himself and his world. We live in
a world of mammals, birds, and flowering plants. It should be a world quite similar to the pre-Flood world.
The Ark, remember, housed representatives of all kinds of air-breathing land
life forms. What we find around us today should fundamentally be the
same type of life Adam and his pre-Flood descendants saw
around them. It would be logical to expect certain varieties to become extinct
in the Flood, but their kind and type should still be with us
today.
In summary, we could expect to find geological evidence of
the food by: 1) noting a time of extinction in the fossil record, 2)
looking toward the top of the geologic sequence of rocks, and 3) looking for an e mal types which are
familiar to us today.
What evidence is. there, then, in the geological column which would lend weight to the worldwide catastrophe precipitated by Noah's Flood?
Extinction Mystery
Dr. George Miller, former supervisor of the famous Los Angeles La Brea Tar
Pits, had this to say about the "sticky" problem of extinction. "We have had two eras of mass vertebrate extinction in the
world's existence: that of the dinosaurs ... and that of the large mammals at
the end of the Pleistocene or Ice Age.... When that period was over, mammoths,
mastadons and saber-toothed cats were extinct - all over the globe.
"It is a mystery. The saber-toothed cats, for instance, were
very successful animals. They died out completely. Why? Catastrophe?
Plague? Earthquakes? A change in environment or climate? We do not know.
"We do not know, either, the answer to the mysteries within the mysteries. For example: horses went through their own evolution only in the Western Hemisphere - so completely that it takes an expert to tell the bones of the last ancient horses from those of modern ones. They spread throughout the world - reaching the other continents, we think, across the land bridge in which is now the Bering Strait. Camels followed almost the same pattern. Yet both horses and camels became extinct in the Western Hemisphere. Horses remained wiped off the face of the Americas until the Spaniards reintroduced them a mere 500 years ago. Again, why?" (Holliday, Kate, West magazine, July 30, 1972, "By Tar Preserved," pp. 11, 14.)
This revealing quote gives some fundamental facts of paleontology - points we will do well to consider.
Note there have been TWO times of mass vertebrate extinction
in the entire history of the earth. The first was the extinction of the
dinosaurs (and it could also be added, flying reptiles and marine reptiles). The
second and more recent vertebrate extinction was that of mammals (commonly giant
size compared with those living today).
The mammalian extinction is especially interesting. It is recent. Mammals
are the dominant vertebrates of today. And, as might be suspected, their
selective
disappearance after a period of successful life is a mystery to science.
End of Giants
Take, for example, North America. At the end of the Ice Age, hunters in
North America were killing the imperial mammoth in the west and the mastodon in
parts of the northeast. Further north, the woolly mammoth lived carefree along
the fringes of the glaciers. North America was an elephant's paradise. But these giant, now extinct, forms of elephants were not alone. In that day of giants, we find beavers as big as bears, giant armadillos,
giant ground sloths weighing as much as present-day elephants, bison with fantastic six-foot horn
spans
spans, the great saber-toothed cats and giant jaguars.
These, along with floo horses and camels, vanished. Why? The land was well suited for them. The Ice Age was over. Yet about 70 percent of all
native North American mammals with an adult body weight
of over 100 pounds became extinct in a time of plenty.
About a hundred years ago, scientists began to see the magnitude of the extinction problem. Alfred R. Wallace, who developed the idea of biological evolution simultaneously with Charles Darwin, was struck by the abrupt, strange and recent decimation of mammal life.
In 1876, Wallace noted: "We live in a zoologically impoverished world, from which all the hugest, and fiercest, and strangest forms have recently disappeared ... yet it is surely a marvelous fact, and one that has hardly been sufficiently dwelt upon, this sudden dying out of so many large Mammalia, not in one place only but over half the land surface of the globe" (Alfred Russel Wallace, Geographical
Distribution of Animals, New York: Hafner, 1962, Vol. 1, p. 150).Now after 100 years, scientists know the effect was worldwide. A global disaster struck the earth after the Ice Age that hit the animal kingdom very hard. South America lost nearly all its large animals. Europe and Asia suffered losses as well. The day of giant mammals had come to an end.
One writer wisely noted: "The diosaurs and the saber-toothed cats did not die out because they had somehow failed. They apparently died out because of some powerful and unusual forces entirely beyond their control" (Science Digest, "The Great Dinosaur Disaster, Daniel Cohen, March 19 69, p. 52).
"Powerful and unusual forces?" Yes, indeed! And in the case of the recent mammal extinction, the agency appears obvious - the Noahchian Flood! We have seen how the scriptural record presents a viable solution to a long standing scientific mystery. Although many details are yet to be clearly understood, the Christian can remain confident that the findings of science continue to support the words of scripture.