Dr. Hugh Ross, founder and president of Reasons to Believe. | (Photo: Reasons to Believe)
Posted on 11/26/2019 8:19:32 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Was Noah's flood geographically local or over the entire Earth?
Speaking last week on an episode of the apologetics group Reasons To Believe YouTube channel, the acclaimed astrophysicist and Christian apologist stressed that when considering the flood of Noah, like any other biblical event, it is important to take into account the entirety of Scripture, not just the specific chapters in Genesis where it is recounted historically.
Dr. Hugh Ross, founder and president of Reasons to Believe. | (Photo: Reasons to Believe)
"2 Peter addresses it, the poetic books address it, so you really want to look at everything the Bible's got to say about the flood of Noah," Ross said.
2 Peter 2:5 states that the "world of ungodly people" was destroyed with a flood. An important distinction, he pointed out.
The Greek word for "world," cosmos, is also qualified with an adjective in that passage and earlier in 2 Peter, meaning that text is speaking of less than the whole globe.
"And from what we see in the first 11 chapters in Genesis, by the time of Noah, human beings had yet to build cities in Antarctica and Greenland and, therefore, there would be no need for God to flood Antarctica and Greenland," Ross elaborated.
Ross, a proponent of old earth creationism, argued against the claims of young earth creationists that the flood covered the entire Earth.
The most explicit texts about the flood, he said, come from Job, Psalms, and Proverbs.
Psalm 104 — the longest of what are called the Creation psalms — speaks of the third day of creation, of God transforming the planets from a world of water without continents or islands to world of continents, islands, and oceans. In verse 9 of that Psalm it is established that never again will water cover the whole face of the earth.
"So there's an explicit statement, once we've got continents on the face of the earth, never again are we going to return to a water world," Ross said.
Thus, that would allow a world of ungodly people to be flooded but not the entire surface of the earth.
Additionally, in three other Psalms, in Job 38, and in Proverbs, God speaks of creating permanent barriers to the waters once the continents are in place, ruling out the possibility that Noah's flood covered the whole planet.
When Ross speaks with those who hold the young earth creationist view, they often point to Genesis 7:11 and the verses that follow where the text speaks of the high mountains being covered with water to a depth of 15 cubits.
Yet in biblical Hebrew, the vocabulary is relatively small, he said, noting the word for mountains is equivalent to hills or mounds. The word "high" could also mean elevated, he continued, that the water covered all the elevated hills that were visible to Noah from his position atop the ark. The Hebrew word used in Genesis 8 for earth cannot be used accurately to refer to the entire surface of the planet, he said.
"I think the clincher is what you see in Genesis 8:5-9 when the floodwaters are receding and Noah releases a dove," Ross said.
From the dove's perspective, water covered the whole face of the Earth, the same phrase used earlier in Genesis 7 where it speaks of waters covering the mountains more than 15 cubits. Since the dove could not have seen the entire Earth, the word being used must be referring to what can be seen by the observer, Ross argued.
"The phrase of the entire face of the earth needs to be understood in the context of the observer," he emphasized.
When non-Christians discover that the Bible does not teach that the floodwaters covered the whole earth they are more open to considering its claims as a serious, inerrant document, Ross explained.
Reasons to Believe takes the view that the first 11 chapter of Genesis are indeed history, that what occurred were in fact actual events.
Ross is president and founder of Reasons to Believe, and an adjunct faculty member at A.W. Tozer Seminary and Southern Evangelical Seminary.
That is not an alternate view it is what the Bible tells me and I believe it.
By some process (call it evolution if you like) God could have made over a long time period hominids who evolved but without a spirit component, just the body and the behavior mechanism we call soul. [Evolution by name is then a means God created to bring things into existence via a process. He remains The Creator, just using a lengthy process.]
It is no stretch of imagination to contemplate a plan God had for combining the specially made Adam and Eve with the evolved hominids who had behavior mechanisms but no spirit. Since God knows the end from the beginning, it is no stretch to believe He would make His special humans to have closely similar DNA, knowing He intended for the non-spirit line to unite with the spirit possessing line.
Since we do not know how the spirit component is passed from father to children of that father, it is not possible to pinpoint how the descendants of Adam have passed spirit to the non-spirit possessing hominids.
You say to want to hear other interpretations but appear to reject other interpretations without cogitating on them.
I have heard your stuff before. And you keep putting words into my mouth. I have tried to be respectful, but you make it awful hard.
You might want to start by not trying to “pick fights”.
Oh really? Perhaps you would show me where post #141 ‘put words in your mouth’ so I can correct that affront to you.
I just reread your post.
I have been reading and listening to different thoughts on this since I was a child. I am open to just about everything.
When it’s written like it’s from a Cecil B DeMille movie, I admit to turning off.
We visited the Ark Encounter in Kentucky this summer. It was a worthwhile visit.
I believe those great scientists were young-earthers because they were not brainwashed by the rhetoric of the failed theologian Charlie Darwin, and the slick lawyer, Charlie Lyell.
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>>Kalamata wrote: "Do you have any scientific evidence to back up your opinion? >>VanDeKoik wrote: "That what? A bunch of geysers just magically appeared out of the ground and blasted the planet with tons of water or that the continents just magically slipped into their current positions due to a flood? No I dont. Because it never happened! That’s the position of people that agree with you!"
You support your opinion with religious fervor, rather than with scientific data.
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>>VanDeKoik wrote: "I’m asking where this has taken place since."
Please rephrase your question.
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>>Kalamata wrote: "The enormous momentum required to push up the high mountain ranges we see today eliminates slow continental drift from the equation."
>>VanDeKoik wrote: "If this wasn’t such nonsense, I would actually start feeling bad."
Why would learning something new make you feel bad?
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>>VanDeKoik wrote: "We have “slow continental drift” today! It is a measurable thing. It is why we have earthquakes! How is this something you dont know?"
Why are you so belligerent?
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>>VanDeKoik wrote: "The mountains we have today took eons to form."
That is a just-so story.
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>>VanDeKoik wrote: "or maybe you can tell us why we dont have any other examples of these instant mountain ranges?"
It happened only once when the continents formed.
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>>VanDeKoik wrote: "The amount of sheer energy required to do what you say in the period allotted would have put so much dust and ash in the sky that no one would have lived through it to write about it."
Only 8 people lived through it.
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>>VanDeKoik wrote: "You cant just attribute God doing all of this massive stuff conveniently (and all at once) at a point where no one can confirm it, but then IGNORE all of the geological activity that is all well-documented today as if it just started happened conveniently after this “flood”."
I haven't ignored anything. However, it is a fact that the great majority of geologists have been brainwashed by the doctrine of Charles Lyell. This evolutionist mentioned it:
"1 should, perhaps, say something about the title of this book. Just as politicians rewrite human history, so geologists rewrite earth history. For a century and a half the geological world has been dominated, one might even say brain-washed, by the gradualistic uniformitarianism of Charles Lyell. Any suggestion of 'catastrophic' events has been rejected as old-fashioned, unscientific and even laughable. This is partly due to the extremism of some of Cuvier's followers, though not of Cuvier himself." [Ager, Derek V., "The New Catastrophism: The Importance of the Rare Event in Geological History." Cambridge University Press, 1993, Preface, p.xi]
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>>Kalamata wrote: "An examination of the world-wide sedimentary rock layers reveals they were laid down at approximately the same time."
>>VanDeKoik wrote: "This is an absolute lie."
I will agree that the statement you just made could have only come from a santimonious jackass.
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>>VanDeKoik wrote: "You do know that places have multiple sedimentary rock layers... or were they all laid down all at once? The flood that laid down one layer, then took a vacation, then laid down another."
Don't be silly. During a flood the suspended sediment is typically sorted. The global flood would also have a tidal force that would cause a certain degree of liquifaction.
Have you ever seen this short video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE8NtWvNBKI
Another point: the thick, homogenous, world-wide rock layers lack the erosion and bioturbation that would be found in sediments formed by slow and/or individual depositions.
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>>VanDeKoik wrote: "All the while mountains are being pushed up by who knows what. How did those sedimentary rock layers have the time to get laid down and harden?"
The mountains were pushed up by momentum. That is simple physics. The sedimentary rock layers were still pliable (NOT hardened) when the mountains were pushed up. Again, these mountains are covered with sedimentary rock layers:
Near the top of Mount Everest is a sedimentary rock layer containing marine fossils. Marine fossils are also found in the other major mountain ranges, such the Andes and Rockies. There is no doubt, even among secular geologists, that the entire world was covered with sea water at one time of another. Creationists simply believe that happened in a single, year-long flood.
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>>Kalamata wrote: "Every animal found in the thick sedimentary layers was killed in the flood. >>VanDeKoik wrote: "So that would mean EVERY animal specials existed at the exact same time!"
A more accurate statement would be, "every animal kind existed at the same time."
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>>VanDeKoik wrote: "So you had Mastodons (that apparently God didnt want to live) living at the same time as the T-Rex, Dodo, Stegosaurus, Killer Whales, Megalodon, Meganeura, every humanoid, and domestic cat breed."
I believe the Mastodons were included in the various kinds that populated the ark, either as a separate kind, or (more likely) as a genetic variety of a particular kind, such as the elephant, which then speciated after the flood.
There is no such thing as a humonoid. The domestic cat is a genetic variety from the Feline family:
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>>Kalamata wrote: "The data reveals they were flash frozen, along with some tropical plants. >>VanDeKoik wrote: "Wholly Mammoths existed up until the time of the building of the Pyramids. So no, that is also not true."
How do you know the Mammoths existed up until the time of the Pyramids?
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>>Kalamata wrote: "Where else did the extinct animals go?"
I don't know what you are asking. Please rephrase your question.
Mr. Kalamata
Vermont Lt wrote, “You might want to start by not trying to “pick fights”.
I never pick fights. I am, however, a counter-puncher.
Mr. Kalamata
Noah lived in the land of Ur (Southern Iraq). He landed at Mt. Ararat in Turkey, about 600 miles away (530 nautical miles).
If the ark was at sea for 190 days (40 rain days and 150 clear days), this means that Noah was traveling at an average speed of about 0.12 knots, essentially floating in place or gently drifting north for most of the time.
I'm not sure if this implies anything. He could have been circling at high speed or just drifting.
Still, if the whole earth had been covered in water, is it likely that after 190 days he'd end up only 530 nm to the north, or would global jet stream have swept him easterly after six months at sea?
On the other hand, if Noah gently drifted north for six months, does this imply that he was in an essentially land-locked sea?
-PJ
Interesting question!
How do you know that?
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>>Political Junkie Too wrote: "He landed at Mt. Ararat in Turkey, about 600 miles away (530 nautical miles)."
The scripture states the Ark landed upon the mountains (plural) of Ararat.
"And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat." -- Gen 8:4 KJV
"And the water subsided, and went off the earth, and after an hundred and fifty days the water was diminished, and the ark rested in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat." -- Gen 8:3 LXX
Mr. Kalamata
I googled it. Some say Ur, some say Mesopotamia. I suppose, based on lineage, it has to be somewhere in that general area.
The scripture states the Ark landed upon the mountains (plural) of Ararat.
So move the landing a little to the northeast. It still doesn't change the gist of what I surmised.
-PJ
The earth (as it existed) was destroyed during the flood:
"And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth." -- Gen 6:13 KJV
Therefore, no one has the slightest clue where Noah lived.
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>>Kalamata wrote: "The scripture states the Ark landed upon the mountains (plural) of Ararat.?
>>Political Junkie Too wrote: "So move the landing a little to the northeast. It still doesn't change the gist of what I surmised."
The Bible never mentions a single mountain named "Ararat." The naming of an individual mountain in Asia Minor as "Ararat" may have been a political move to attract tourism, etc.. Recall that "Ararat" was a region with more than one kingdom:
"Set ye up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashchenaz; appoint a captain against her; cause the horses to come up as the rough caterpillers." -- Jer 51:27 KJV
Mr. Kalamata
That said...
I will destroy them with the earth.
Personally, what you write seems a bit too fundamentalist for my taste.
Is it possible that "with the earth" could mean using the earth as a tool, as in with rain, lightning, earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanoes, and not "with the earth" as in also destroy the earth while destroying the people on it?
I am not ready to accept that the flood reshaped the continents and mountains as a convenient way to dismiss other questions.
-PJ
To put it into a nutshell: Hugh doesn't claim that God couldn't construct and maintain a 1400 mile cube in these physical laws but rather that He wouldn't, because He has told us that He maintains constant laws of physics here, which do not permit such structures. Thus, the New Jerusalem will be in the new creation with its new physical laws.
That is not a taste test. That is a direct quote from God's Word. This is the context:
"And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth." -- Gen 6:12-13 KJV
I like to think of myself as a Berean:
"And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so." -- Acts 17:10-11 KJV
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>>Political Junkie Too wrote: "Is it possible that "with the earth" could mean using the earth as a tool, as in with rain, lightning, earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanoes, and not "with the earth" as in also destroy the earth while destroying the people on it?"
I don't think so. There are other passages that support the destruction, that is, the rearrangement of the earth. This passage from the Psalms gives the complete flood story, in a nutshell:
"He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved. You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. At your rebuke they [the waters] fled; at the sound of your thunder they took to flight. The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them. You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they [the waters] might not again cover the earth." -- Ps 104:5-9 ESV
The last verse was the promise to Noah, and to us, that the Lord would never again destroy the all flesh with water.
The clause that states, "At your rebuke [the waters] fled; at the sound of your thunder [the waters] took to flight," refers to rapidity of the water leaving the land and pouring into the ocean "valleys," which left us with landscape anomalies like this:
Those rock "monuments" are pockets where the sediment layers had hardened enough to resist erosion by the fast water run-off. The eroded sediment ended up (mostly) on the world-wide continental shelf.
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>>Political Junkie Too wrote: "I am not ready to accept that the flood reshaped the continents and mountains as a convenient way to dismiss other questions."
Nor would I. I was a life-long evolutionist until about 8 years ago when I examined the geological column for the first time. That was enough to convince me that the uniformitarian principle was hogwash. Only later did I discover that the fossil record, and, of late, the genome, also support the biblical narrative.
Mr. Kalamata
Perhaps the ‘other’ spacetime coordinate system already exists no further away than the length of a forearm. The scriptures tell us God is going to roll up the heavens like a scroll. Dimensionally if our coordinate system is enclosed in a greater coordinate system, rolling up ours may be the revealing of the New Heavens for our habitation in our glorified bodies.
New Jerusalem is not a physical place:
More:"For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest . . . But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." -- Heb 12:18, 22-24 KJV
"And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." -- Isa 2:2-3 KJV
"Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." -- Eph 2:19-22 KJV
"But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all." -- Gal 4:23-26 KJV
"These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country . . . But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city." -- Heb 11:13-14,16 KJV
"And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen." -- 2Tim 4:18 KJV
Mr. Kalamata
Certainly not physical as we currently understand it.
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