Could the Flood have been tranquil? Adapted from the author’s The Genesis Account

Creation Ministries International ^ | 1-30-2019 | Jonathan Sarfati

[fishtank]

Could the Flood have been tranquil? Adapted from the author’s The Genesis Account: A theological, historical, and scientific commentary on Genesis 1–11, 2015.1

by Jonathan Sarfati

1-30-2019

In response to the uniformitarian dogma of Darwin’s mentor Charles Lyell, Scottish pastor-zoologist John Fleming (1785–1857) proposed a novel idea. That is, the Genesis Flood was real and global, but it left no trace, because it was a tranquil flood. Modern long-age creationist Norman Geisler (b. 1932) also holds this view.2

[imardmd1]

Have you linked to my reference and listened to Walt Brown? If not, you’re missing the meat of the message. I encourage you to do so before going much further.

[Roman_War_Criminal]

I’ve heard Mr. Brown speak before, never read any of his works however.
What books of his do you recommend?

[imardmd1]

What books of his do you recommend?

The only one I have had is an early edition of "In The Beginning" which I think is his only (but exhaustive) publication. New or used copies are available at Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Compelling-Evidence-Creation-Flood/dp/1878026097

Not everyone in the "Creation Science" community likes his theory. And it is a theory.

[imardmd1]

How much of the Bible do you believe, and will publicly without reserve subscribe to?

Which do you believe in, that by death came man? or, by man came death?

Do you think it is easier to convince that someone was executed as a criminal, was completely dead, the was made alive in the same body, walked around, then disappeared and exists in another dimension? Or do you think that it is easier to convince someone that there is a mighty God apart from our universe, and that He created everything in it in a week?

(Rhetorical, if you wish; don't want to waste your time.)

[Tell It Right]

I believe every bit of the Bible is the inerrant Word of God and is 100% true.

I think the difference between you and me is I don't try to conform the Bible to what I was told it says or mean. Since our dialogue began with Noah's flood being global vs. regional, consider this:

In Genesis 6 & 7 the word "world" or "earth" (depending on which translation you're reading) comes form the Hebrew word "'eret". That has multiple definitions that include world or region (maybe country).

That's why when that same word "'eret" is used later in Genesis 12:1, absolutely nobody interprets that as God telling Abram to leave the planet Earth, but to leave his country or region. You can see the list of all the places that one word is used in the Bible here: eret

If you believe the Bible to be the only source of 100% truth (as I do too) then you and I should think twice before demanding every little thing about the Noah story conform to parts of it that aren't stated in the Bible. For this argument, I'm suggesting that you not demand every little thing in nature support your belief that the flood was global (which the Bible text alone doesn't explicitly or implicitly state) nor should I demand every little thing in nature support my belief that the flood was regional (the Bible doesn't state this either). That's part of you and I being Bible believers first.

And if you switch to believing in God's creation/flood/Jesus' death/Jesus' resurrection only in exactly how the Bible describes them and are open to different ways to fill in the gaps of what the Bible doesn't explicitly say, there's plenty in the scientific record and historical record to support the Bible you and I believe in. It's when we constrain our beliefs by demanding the Bible says what we were told all our lives it says (but often doesn't explicitly say) that when we make the Bible look ridiculous.

For another example, let's look at the creation of man. You and I agree wholeheartedly that God created man "in His image", perhaps had more intensive and personal activity in forming him (molding man from the dust as opposed to just speaking man into existence like God created other organisms). Plus God even breathed the breath of life into man (something the Bible doesn't say God did with other organisms). So it should surprise absolutely nobody that when we look at man's spiritual life, artistic life, capabilities in math and the industrial age, and even things in man's DNA that makes him way way more different from other organisms than any other organism stands out, we see that man is completely unique to all other forms of life. These are things you and I can point to others as validity of the creation account.

But if you try to demand people believe mankind didn't come into existence until 6,000 years ago (which the Bible does not say), that mankind existed at the time of dinosaurs (again which the Bible does not explicitly say), that plants were in existence only a few days before man (again, it depends on if you demand the word "yom" be a 24-hour period and not other literal definitions), then you demand others believe your "proof" or "evidence" based on pseudo-science and thereby, make the Bible look as ridiculous as Scientology's pseudo-science.

[Roman_War_Criminal]

10-4
There’s a lot of theories out there about a lot of things.
Nobody has all of the answers.

1 Corinthians 13:12

[imardmd1]

Thanks for taking the time to formulate a partial answer my questions. But apparently, you think that by death came man and not vice versa; and though 100% true, the Bible was not verbally inspired.

So let me ask another: How many 24-hour days was it that photosynthesizing plants had to exit before the sun came into existence?

[imardmd1]

. . . had to exist before the sun . . .

[hawkaw]

I hope you don’t mind but I just don’t buy into a big flood. That is not what the geological record shows by any stretch. It does show many areas that we live in now were under water 10s of millions of years ago, but there has been no flood over the entire planet especially since humans have been on the earth.

Now having said all that, I fully respect folks who do believe in the flood, just like those who, on this db, try to tell me the Bible writers were not flat earthers. I definitely prefer your company over a lot of left leaning crazies.

[Tell It Right]

I'm not making a statement that death is a catalyst for man's existence or vice-versa. I think you're assuming I believe the exact opposite of what many young earthers believe regarding death and original sin. Since many young earthers believe that absolutely no organism could have possibly died at all until Adam and Eve sinned (as some interpret 1 Cor. 15:21-22 and Romans 5:12), maybe you're assuming I believe the opposite -- that Adam and Eve couldn't exist until other organisms died? I don't believe that at all. I simply believe many organisms were living, reproducing, and dying on the earth for at least hundreds of millions of years before Adam & Eve (whom I'd peg living around 100K to 150K years ago). The other organisms didn't have to die to cause Adam and Eve to come into being or to sin. The other organisms simply lived and died and lived and died and lived and died and kept on living and dying before God created Adam and Eve, before Adam and Eve sinned, and since Adam and Eve sinned. To me, the presence of other organisms before Adam and Eve's sin is not something I feel bound to either tie to each other or make sure they're disconnected from each other. They both simply exist in the Bible text and that's all I know for sure. The rest is just theory (i.e. young earthers believing no organism died before original sin, likewise my belief that many organisms lived and died before Adam & Eve existed just like they've done since Adam & Eve).

Maybe I'm wrong, but here's how I see things regarding plants (day 3) before sun (day 4). And if you think about it, whether young earth or old earth the same dilemma exists for light being in day 1 before sun in day 4. Unless you believe the light in day 1 was emanating directly from God -- which I guess is possibly, but God creating light from His word on day 1 seems to suggest that he used some other means besides just shining in His own glory like He did in other parts of the Bible.

Genesis 1 verse 2 says that God hovered over the deep, then repeats it again saying He hovered over the waters. To me, this repetition is enough to get our attention. I think this is verse 2's way of setting the point of view for the rest of the creation story. So imagine if you had a Dr. Who Tardis and an awesomely durable and battery-efficient GoPro camera that could kind of float around, look every direction, etc. And you went back in time billions of years to a point in time when our planet was nothing but a blob of water vapor and dust particles. At that point in time you placed the camera where you're physically at right now (which would put it in a location that was about a point that was hovering over globs of particles of water vapor and dust). Then got back in your Tardis and come back to the present, picked up the GoPro camera, and watched the past 4 billions of years at a really speedy fast forward pace. That's how I see Genesis 1 with the various things appearing in the Bible text in the order your very hypothetical GoPro camera would see them.

When God said "let there be light" on day 1 is when He thinned the atmosphere enough for light to get through, but not thin enough to see the bodies in the sky that were the sources of light (sun, moon, stars). So your GoPro camera would go from having total darkness to having some light, but it'd be like a very foggy day. Day 2 is when the water particles coalesced enough so that most of the water was collected together on the surface. Your GoPro camera would show water beneath it and water vapor/fog/atmosphere above it. Day 3 is when tectonic activity produced the land where you're at now and also had the types of soil being conditioned enough to sustain life until He used the power of His word to start plant life. What's amazing for Bible believers like you and me is that the archaeological record confirms that plant life existed before other organisms.

Day 4 is when the atmosphere had thinned enough so that if your GoPro camera was pointed up it would be able to see the sun, then further thinning of the atmosphere be able to see the moon at night, then even further thinning be able to see other stars.

Day 5 is when God created the water animals and birds. Again, our archaeological record confirms they were the next organisms to exist! Including in the order the Bible says in day 5 (fish before birds). Science is so very much our friend!

Day 6 is when God created animal life on land then created mankind. Yet again the evidence confirms it! To me this is an astounding apologetics argument for the validity of the Bible you and I believe in. To think Genesis was written 3,500 years ago and is so incredibly accurate is amazing to me! It truly is the inspired Word of God!

[Tell It Right]

Buy the way, I've been very courteous to you regarding you believing the Bible as much as I do, just interpreting it differently. Not once have I said you don't believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God. Nor have I said that you don't believe the Bible is 100% true. But you always assume that I have only a half belief in the Bible because I don't interpret it exactly like you do.

In fact, I use phrases like "maybe I'm wrong, but", or "IMHO" (which "is my humble opinion"). That's my way of saying I disagree with you, but not with an arrogant faith in my own interpretation to the point where anyone who disagrees with me is only a half-way Bible believer. I'd appreciate it if you'd do the same for me. I always assume the Bible is 100% accurate and anything in it that seems wrong is either my own bias messing up my understanding of it or the traditions I was raised to believe giving me a misleading bias of it. I believe you're of the same merit when it comes to believing the Bible, I just seem to be the one to realize that you can be spiritually mature and still disagree with me.

[DungeonMaster]

It is interesting to me that you mentioned the speed of light. As a person who loved astronomy before I got saved it took quite a while after I got saved to trade my love for old universe theory astronomy for young universe theory creation.

Astronomers are studying galaxies that seem to be 15 billion light years away that the bible says were created 6000 years ago.

[imardmd1]

I appreciate that you have put down a more detailed summary of how your reliance on the Bible as being 100% true and inerrant works out when put into practice. Those who define that truth use the definitions "verbal inspiration" and "plenary inspiration." Are you familiar with those terms?

Also, in using the term "interpretation" are you aware that "translation" is not the same?

(BTW, the Bible I use for study is the King James Version. It is a very good translation in which the scholars that produced it deliberately kept the interpretive content as minimal as they could.)

[imardmd1]

That's my way of saying I disagree with you, but not with an arrogant faith in my own interpretation to the point where anyone who disagrees with me is only a half-way Bible believer. I'd appreciate it if you'd do the same for me.

Well, as a trained scientist I have found that it is generally a waste of time to be pussy-footing around when facts are at hand. I use the modes of communication to tell it the way it is, bluntly if necessary, rather than come at things edgewise.

So far, all I've done here is ask questions that sort of force one to come up with a clear answer. I don't believe that is arrogance. If you think you can get me to tailor my direct style so that you can feel comfortable, the answer is "No."

[Tell It Right]

Please tell me where in the Bible it says the stars (or anything else in the universe) was created 6,000 years ago.

[Tell It Right]

The three most insightful times I read through the Bible were:

1) The first time I read through it all. I was going to a church that was a KJV-only-or-it's-not-really-the-Bible kind of church. So I as a 14-year-old read the KJV 1.5 times (NT, then OT, then NT again).

2) As the years went by I read different versions and they were interesting, but nothing that was like "Aha! Now I see it 10 times better than before!" kind of thing. Until a friend of mine gave me one that was in chronological order (with notes to why they said this part was written such and such time, but emphasized off and on they weren't sure and could be written at a different time). That gave me a whole new light on things like the meat of Paul's letters (if you know what was going on in the early church at the time from reading what was going on in Acts) and reading the prophetic OT books (again if you knew what was going on at the time by reading 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles). It was NIV, but to be honest it wasn't so much the fact that it was NIV that was insightful (I had already read through the entire NIV by then anyway). It was having things in chronological order that was insightful.

Then there was the time I read the entire Bible from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 in 4 different versions simultaneously (KJV, NASB, NIV, and AMP). Any time I saw a discrepancy among how one of them translated something differently from the others I stopped what I was reading and looked things up in the Strong's concordance and saw both the definition of the original word and also how that same word was used in other parts of the Bible.

Based on that time I did that I'd have to say the Amplified is the most accurate. It was rare I'd find something the others "got it right" and was different from the Amplified. Every now and then the King James Version was the most accurate (most of those times it was in the Old Testament).

IMHO, the NIV wasn't so bad off it changed any of the meat to any of the truths of the Bible. The only times it's inaccurate is if you're wanting to dig into the weeds for specific details that, to be honest, sometimes weren't meant to be focused on to begin with. Like us trying to count acorns on the ground when God wants us to see the forest right in front of us. I gotta admit I often fall in the camp of overanalyzing the Word. :)

[Tell It Right]

Oh, and I'm very aware of the difference between translation and interpretation. For instance, in most of my back-and-forth with you I was using the Hebrew words (i.e. "yom" for day and "ertes" for world or country). So instead of talking about differences in translation (like if KJV used "world" where NIV used "earth"), I focused differences between yours and my interpretation (you see the use of the word "ertes" as world when talking about the flood when I see it as region or country).

As far as being a trained scientist goes, I'm a software engineer with a computer science degree who's worked many years in the field, including making software for natural sciences.

[Tell It Right]

Oh yeah, and as a trained scientist you'd probably appreciate the Amplified's syntax. The translators use things like:

Square brackets mean a word or phrase my be translated incorrectly -- they're letting you know they're not sure. Look at Deuteronomy 6 where in verse 4 it says "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one [the only God]!" That's their way of saying, the Hebrew word "echad" means "one" or sometimes "only one", but the translators aren't sure which for that verse. I like it when people give me information and they tell me how accurate they believe it is instead of me assuming everything they tell me is to be taken as accurate.

Italics mean the word wasn't in the original text. Using the link above, look in verse 2 where it has the word "and" italicized. That means the Amplified translators put that word in to make it's easy to read and have grammatical structure, but I shouldn't read that word and run off on a tangent in my interpretation and believe things like "that verse says 'and' not 'or' " or something like that. Plus, one of the criticisms against the NIV was that they "took out some verses" and stuff. That's because the NIV looked at oldest known copies of the manuscripts and decided anything not in the oldest copies wasn't in the original and, therefore, shouldn't be in their translation. The AMP translators decided to include those in their translation, just let us know using italics that they weren't in the oldest manuscripts. I like having that information.

Then there's how they elaborate the words in case there's ambiguity. Look at John 3:16 in John 3 and see how they translate the word "pisteuo" ("believeth" in KJV). They're making sure we don't see the word "believe" and think it means how we often use the phrase today like, "I believe it might rain by noon." They say "believes and trusts".

[imardmd1]

This is all quite interesting, but a lot of how one regards a particular translation requires at least an understanding of the two questions in Post #33 that you were responding to, but didn't directly address.

[imardmd1]

Oh, and I'm very aware of the difference between translation and interpretation.

What is the difference?

Do you know what sets the KJV apart from the NIV? You might want to check this "If The Foundations Be Destroyed" (click here)

(Sorry, I was writing #39 as you posted #37.)