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Flood Summary
June 26th 2022
Okay we wrapped up chapter 8 last week and read verse 22 which I did not give very much attention to – so let’s do that before we give a summary and read what God said once the flood abated and Noah and the rest exited it into the whole new world.
21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.
22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
I want to focus on the first line of 22 where God says, “while the earth remains (there will be) seedtime and harvest and cold and heat and day and night shall not cease.
There is something very expressive in the original, which better reads, “until all the DAYS of the earth,” and these words support the strong presumption that the earth shall “not” have an endless duration.
But we must fall back on language because the word for earth here is erets and can mean something less than the Hebrew word for the whole planet.
I maintain then, that God is talking about that Mesopotamian area would from that day forward have seasons etc and never be wiped out by flood again – which we cannot say is true of other regions of the world.
And this ends the account of the general deluge, its cause, circumstances, and consequences.
And not to the big questions – was the flood as ubiquitous as many Christians maintain. The reason I want to really examine this question is because to me it represents a mindset that is detrimental to the faith today. And that mindset is the unreasonable biblical literalism that is foisted upon the world primarily by Evangelicals.
To embrace it and its traditional fantasies undermines the rock-solid wonders of the Good News and places our unsuspecting youth in a precarious place when they are confronted with the world of advancing sciences.
So let me appeal to a devout Christian scientist named Carol A Hill and an article she wrote titled, Noachian Flood: Universal or Local.
Thank you, sister Carol for your bravery.
She mentions that in partnership with creation scientists (also known as biblical literalists) is a subset of people called flood geologists and that these sorts claim “that most of the Earth’s sedimentary rocks and fossils were deposited during the deluge of Noah as described in Genesis 6–8,” and that “to explain this universal flood, flood geologists usually invoke the canopy theory, which hypothesizes that water was held in an immense atmospheric canopy and subterranean deep between the time of Creation and Noah’s Flood. Then, at the time of the Flood, both of these water sources were suddenly released in a deluge of gigantic, Earth-covering proportions.”
This event caused “a major geologic change in the crust of the Earth” as “modern mountain ranges rose, sea bottoms split open, and continents drifted apart and canyons were cut with amazing speed.”
She adds, “All animals and plants died and became encased in flood sediments, and then these fossil-bearing sediments became compacted into sedimentary rock.”
We note that there are modifications of the canopy theory which include things like the “ice-lens, theory” “greenhouse,” “invisible,” and “visible” canopies, but essentially the canopy theory claims that waters released during Noah’s Flood caused all (or most) of the sedimentary and geomorphic features we see today on planet Earth.”
And she then says that these theories, which “are at odds with the principles and findings of modern geology” are derived from
a universal flood model is primarily based on:
the universal language of Gen. 6–8;
Genesis 2:5–6; and
the presumed landing of Noah’s ark on the summit of Ararat (Gen. 8:4), a mountain in northeastern Turkey.
She approachwa these three topics in the paper I mentioned earlier to offset the biblical literalism of a universal flood in favor of a local model for the flood.
She begins with discussion the universal language of Genesis 6-8 – which we have mentioned over the past few weeks.
First of all, Christians love and follow the Bible – which is good. But to read it with eyes so devoted to the text that it breeds literalism throughout is a mistake make for thousands of years and lends to something lost that God expects from those He made in His image – to seek, reason, think, and choose.
The main reason why people in centuries past have believed that Genesis was talking about the whole planet, and why this traditional interpretation has continued to the present day begins with the hyperbolic language and literal interpretation of it found in Genesis 6–8.
For instance, “earth” (eretz or adâmâh) is used forty-two times, “all” (kowl) is used twenty times, “every” (also kowl in Hebrew) is used twenty-three times, and “under heaven” (literally, “under the sky”) is used two times.
As we know, the word for earth literally mean “earth, ground, land, dirt, soil, or country.” Here’s the deal – it is improbable that Earth, in Moses day, had the idea that it is a planet and therefore they would not have had a word for it – of course, unless God inspired them to understand cosmology perfectly – which is possible but unlikely.
Their “world” mainly (but not entirely) encompassed the land of Mesopotamia—a flat alluvial plain enclosed by the mountains and high ground of Iran, Turkey, Syria, and Saudi Arabia which are lands drained by the four rivers of Eden (Gen. 2:10–14).
I think it’s important (but debated by biblical literalists) that the Bible must be interpreted within the narrow limit of what was known about the world at the time is was written and not according to our knowledge and world view.
For example, Genesis 7:23 and 8:8 the face of the ground, in place of “earth,” does not imply the planet Earth.
“Land” is a better translation than “earth” for the Hebrew eretz because it points to the “face of the ground” that we can see around us; that is, what is within our horizon.
It also can refer to a specific stretch of land in a local geographic or political sense. For example, when Zechariah 5:6 says “all the earth,” it is literally talking about Palestine—a tract of land or country, not the whole planet Earth.
Similarly, in Mesopotamia, the concept of “the land” (kalam in Sumerian) seems to have included the entire alluvial plain.
This is most likely the correct interpretation of the term “the earth,” which is used over and over again in Genesis 6-8.
The clincher to the word “earth” meaning ground or land (and not the planet Earth) is Genesis 1:10 where we read: God called the dry land earth (eretz). If God defined “earth” as “dry land,” then so should we – and not the whole world.
Then to the words, “All, Every, and Under Heaven.”
While these terms also seem to impart a universality to the Flood event, all three are also used to describe locality and do not necessarily have an all-inclusive or universal meaning.
For example, Acts 2:5 states: “And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven.”
Obviously referring to under the heavens that contained devout men and that Luke knew about so it certainly it did not include North America, South America, or Australia, which were unknown in the first century AD.
Such “universal” language is simply the way people expressed themselves in those days to emphasize a level of inclusiveness—what Carol calls, “Bible-speak” that is not supposed to be taken absolutely literally, but in the context of what the biblical author was trying to emphasize. I call the language Hebraisms, which I think I made up – or stole.
This passage in Acts simply means that devout men (Jews) of many nations from some extended region of the then-known world were present at Jerusalem. The Apostle Paul uses similar hyperbolic language in Colossians 1:6, where he writes, speaking of the Gospel,
Colossians 1:5 For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel;
6 Which is come unto you, as it is in all the world; and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth.
Interestingly, Paul uses Kosmos there, so we KNOW that it is NOT literal but Bible Speak.
Another excellent example of how a universal “Bible-speak” is used in Genesis to describe a non-universal, regional event is Genesis 41:46 where we read:
“And the famine was over all the face of the earth.”
Was Moses claiming that the whole planet Earth (North America, Australia, etc.) was experiencing famine? Of course not, as the universality of this verse applied only tos the lands of the Near East (Egypt, Palestine, Mesopotamia), and perhaps even the Mediterranean area (called the whole known world at that time).
So in the story of the Flood the “earth” was the land (ground) as Noah knew (tilled) it and saw it “under heaven”—that is, the land under the sky in the visible horizon, and “all flesh” were those people and animals who had died or were perishing around the ark in the land of Mesopotamia.
Another way to see it was as another scholar puts it,
“It was not a universal deluge; it was a vast flood in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates which drowned the whole of the habitable land … for the people who lived there that was all the world. ”
This is such an important insight to be observed right here in Genesis because the hyperbolic language of the Hebrews extends to their writings in the Apostolic record.
A universal deluge—and specifically the canopy theory—is based on Genesis 2:5–6:
“And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.”
Again, the misuse of the term eretz to mean the whole world here leads to a misinterpretation of Gen. 2:5.
Flood geologists claim that it did not rain upon the entire planet ever before Noah’s Flood – for over 2000 years? No, all it means is it had not rained over that specific parcel of land in Mesopotamia or, in this case, the area known as Eden which was located at the confluence of the four rivers in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf.
Note that this area is one of the driest places on Earth, with an average annual rainfall of less than four inches.
Then there is the “mist.”
The local interpretation of “earth” (eretz) also applies to Genesis 2:6 where we read:
“But there went up a mist from the earth (land or ground around Eden) and watered the whole face of the earth (ground surface).”
The key word on which the canopy theory hangs is “mist.” This word has been assumed by flood geologists to imply a thick vapor canopy; yet, meanings other than “mist” and “vapor” have been suggested based on Akkadian and Sumerian cuneiform texts, which were not available to the translators of the King James Version of the Bible.
The Akkadian edû, from which ‘ed is derived, can refer to the annual inundation of southern Mesopotamia (as well as to irrigation); thus, ‘ed may refer to Eden being watered by floods rather than by a mist. Frankly, the term mist is better understood as flow like from an underground spring.
Another question relative to Genesis 7:20) is, “How did Noah measure the depth of the flood at fifteen cubits?” or How did Moses know the depth. Our answer is either by inspiration or by real investigation. In that day, people used rods or poles to measure water depth. Are we to believe that Noah took our a stick and placed it on to top of Everest swirling in the turbulent waters of a universal flood?
Then there is the fact today that no geologic evidence whatsoever exists for a universal flood, flood geology, or the canopy theory.
Modern geologists, hydrologists, paleontologists, and geophysicists know how the different types of sedimentary rock form, how fossils form and what they represent, and how fast the continents are moving apart (their rates can be measured by satellite). They also know how flood deposits form and the geomorphic consequences of
flooding.
Since the Flood was supposedly worldwide, then there must be evidence in the geologic record left by it.
Since the only massive sediments on Earth are those tied up in sedimentary rocks, and because these rocks often contain fossils, this must be the “all flesh” Genesis 7:21 mentions left in the wake of Noah’s Flood.
And since sedimentary rock can be found on some of the highest peaks in the world, including Everest, then these mountains must have formed during and after the Flood.
The “leaps of logic” build one on top of another until finally, as the result of this cataclysmic event, almost all of the geomorphic and tectonic features present on the planet Earth (e.g., canyons, caves, mountains, continents) are attributed by flood geologists to the Noachian Flood.
But does the Bible actually say anything about mountains rising during the Flood? It does not, but note that it does say that mountains and hills were in place before the Flood (Genesis 7:19, 8:4).
Does the Bible say anything about sedimentary rock, fossils, or drifting continents? Not one word. All of these things are read into the Bible from centuries-past traditions and interpretation of it.
Most important from a literalist perspective, it can be shown from the Bible (Genesis 2:10–14; Genesis 6:14) that the four rivers of Eden flowed over, and cut into, sedimentary rock strata; that the pre-Flood landscape was a modern one (similar to the present-day landscape; that is, overlying sedimentary rock); and that the bitumen (pitch) used by Noah to caulk the ark was derived from hydrocarbon-rich sedimentary rock.
Therefore, sedimentary rock MUST (not might) have existed before the Flood. The Bible itself never claims that all of the sedimentary rock on Earth formed at the time of the Noachian Flood— only flood geologists make this claim.
And then why is a vapor canopy invoked by many biblical literalists (creation scientists) as the proper interpretation of Genesis 2:5–6?
Because they needed some kind of extra water source to make the Noachian Flood universal.
Bottom line: there simply is not enough water in Earth’s atmosphere today to supply more than about 40 feet of water to the ground worldwide, nor is there any evidence of vast reservoirs of subterranean water (past or present) that could have supplied this water.
Therefore, a vast reservoir of water that deluged the entire Earth must somehow be “manufactured” in order for even Mount Ararat (17,000 feet high) to have been covered by the Flood.
Bottom line – scientific (and biblical) problems abound with trying to supply the extra water demanded by the canopy theory. A few of the more major problems are:
The so-called “vapor canopy” was envisioned by one so called creationist scholar Morris as a “vast blanket of invisible water vapor, translucent to the light from the stars but producing a marvelous “greenhouse effect” that gave the entire antediluvian world a relatively mild and uniform climate.”
But we know that this condition, while romantic and fanciful would have created an atmospheric pressure at the Earth’s surface that would have been greater than that of Venus’ and combined with warm temperatures envisioned for the “greenhouse effect” phenomena, would not have created a benevolent environment, but would have produced a “runaway greenhouse effect,” which would have made it impossible for animals and plants to thrive or even survive.
But if there was only a vapor canopy before the Flood, and no rain, then how did the four rivers of Eden (Gen. 2:11–14) get their water? Would not rain and snow have fed these rivers (as they do today?)
And then where did all of the 17,000+ feet of global water go after the Flood? Did it miraculously escape into space like Joseph Smiths Goldden plates?
The “fountains of the deep” (springs) would have been completely saturated with water if there had been a worldwide flood, so the water could not have drained away back into the “deep.” And, how could the wind (mentioned in Genesis 8:1) have evaporated water 3–6 miles deep in less than a year (Genesis 8:13)?
Just a little thinking causes the propositions of Man to support their zeal to begin to sink.
Then let’s talk about the landing place of the ark which has been one of the most controversial of all the aspects of Noah’s Flood, with flood geologists insisting that the Bible identifies the site as Mount Ararat—the huge volcanic construct, Agri Dag, in northeastern Turkey (which I said was Armenia last week – wrong).
What is generally not realized is that placement of the ark on Mount Ararat is a relatively “late” phenomenon. Only in the eleventh and twelfth centuries AD did the focus of investigators begin to shift toward Mount Ararat as the ark’s final resting place, and only by the end of the fourteenth century AD does it seem to have become a fairly well established tradition.
Before this, both Islamic and Christian tradition held that the landing place of the ark was on a mountain called, “Jabel Judi,”located about 30 miles (48 km) northeast of the Tigris River near Cizre, Turkey.
The ark has been assigned to at least eight different landing places over the centuries including Saudi Arabia, India,33 and even the mythical Atlantis. One reason for this ambiguity is that the Bible does not actually pinpoint the exact place where the ark landed, it merely alludes to a region or range of mountains where the ark came to rest: the mountains of Ararat (Genesis. 8:4).
According to Isaiah 37:38 Ararat is the biblical name for Urartu an area known to the ancient Assyrians. And this mountainous area, geographically centered around Lake Van and between Lake Van and Lake Urmia was part of the ancient region of “Armenia” (not limited to the country of Armenia today).
“Mountain” in Genesis 8:4 is plural; therefore, the Bible does not specify that the ark landed on the highest peak of the region (Mount Ararat), only that the ark landed somewhere on the mountains or highlands of Armenia (both “Ararat” and “Urartu” can be translated as “highlands”).
In biblical times, “Ararat” was actually the name of a province (not a mountain), as can be seen from its usage in 2nd Kings 19:37: “… some escaped into the land of Ararat” and Jeremiah 51:27, which says, “… call together against her (Israel) the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Askkenaz …”
Even though many sites have been proposed for the landing place of the ark, only four appear to meet the requirement of being located within the boundaries of ancient Armenia:
Mount Nisir, Mount Nisibis, Mount Ararat, and Jabel Judi.
The Sumerian Gilgamesh Epic states that the boat came to rest on Mount Nisir, which is located not far from the Little Zab River, in the modern “As Sulaymaniyah” region of the Zagros Mountains.
Mount Nisibis is located near modern-day Nusybyn, near the border of Turkey and Syria.
While these two locations have been identified as possible landing places of the ark, the most cited and most likely contenders for that distinction are Mount Ararat and Jabel Judi.
A universal model for the Noachian Flood hinges on Mount Ararat being the landing place of the ark, because if the ark had landed on this mountain, it would imply that the water level would have had to have been at an elevation of at least 17,000 feet; therefore the Noachian Flood would have been a universal, planet-wide flood extending way beyond the Mesopotamian basin.
But, as mentioned, the Bible (Gen. 8:4) does not specify Mount Ararat as the site. It simply refers to the “highlands in the province of Urartu” within the ancient kingdom of Armenia. So the insistence of Mount Ararat being the landing site of the ark is a wrongful interpretation of the Hebrew text.
If Mount Ararat is not the landing site of Noah’s ark, then what about all of the books, movies, and TV shows that have claimed that the ark has actually been found on Mount Ararat (called, Agri Dag)?
None of these popular accounts have been verified: some have been shown to be actual hoaxes, and all have been shown to be scientifically unfounded.
Since the early 1800s, there have been more than a dozen expeditions to Mount Ararat to find the ark, none of which have proved successful.
The first popularized modern search for Noah’s ark on Mount Ararat was by Fernand Navarra in 1955 and then again in 1969. On the northwest side of Mount Ararat, Navarra collected sections of worked timber from beneath a glacier at 14,000 feet of elevation.
These specimens were identified as Quercus (oak), and have been radiocarbon dated by six different dating labs at 720–790 AD (for the wood collected by Navarra in 1955) and 620–640 AD (for the wood collected in 1969).
These dates suggest that the wood may have been part of a Byzantine or Armenian shrine commemorating what was believed by the people of that region to have been the landing site of the ark.
In 1993, CBS aired a two-hour television special entitled “The Incredible Discovery of Noah’s Ark,” which was reportedly seen by an estimated twenty million viewers. But an actual hoax was involved in that a piece of modern pine wood was made to look ancient and was claimed to be a piece of the ark.
Another hoax, where a Texas group claimed to have seen and photographed the ark from Mount Ararat, showed that their photo of the ark had been retouched.
Noah’s ark was again reported by the popular press in the early 1990s to have been found near Do ubayazit, Turkey, 12 miles (20 km) southwest of Mount Ararat. Supposedly a “boat” having the dimensions of the ark had been found—a boat made out of petrified gopher wood and containing ribs, iron rivets, and stone anchors.
In reality, the “boat” turned out to be a natural volcanic (ophiolitic basalt) rock formation, some 110– 120 million years old, which mimicked the shape of a boat due to the rock being steeply inclined along the limbs of a doubly plunging anticline.
The supposed fossilized “gopher wood bark” was crinkle-folded metamorphosed rock, the “iron rivets” were naturally-occurring concentrations of limonite and magnetite; and the “anchor stones” were pieces of local andesite (another volcanic rock type), not (as supposed) derived from Mesopotamia.
In short, the scientific evidence demonstrated that the “boat” found near Do?ubayazit is a completely natural rock formation—or what Carol Hill calls a “phantom ark.”
All of this smacks of zealous zeal focused on material supports lacking any basis in reality – similar to the Hill Cumorah claims of Mormonism.
Mount Ararat (AgriDag) is an almost 17,000-foot-high volcano that is still intermittently active (last eruption was reportedly on July 2, 1840).
Let me cite Professor Hill in a paragraph that is heavy as she writes, speaking of Ararat:
“The mountain rises above the high (~6000 ft) plateau of eastern Turkey, which is crossed by a broad eastwest belt of folded mountains formed by the Armenian Taurus and Zagros systems that separate the plateau from the Mesopotamian depression. The Ararat construct (including the two strato-volcanoes Great Ararat and Little Ararat) cuts across Devonian, Permo-Carboniferous, Cretaceous, Eocene, and Miocene sedimentary rock. The volcanoes have erupted along a southwest-northeast trending lineament, which became established at the beginning of the Miocene (~20 million years ago). Andesitic lava is typical for the main crater of both volcanoes, but flank eruptions are basaltic. Vast lava flows, from Miocene time to the present, cover many of the older sedimentary rocks of the region.”
Then she adds:
Why is all of this information on the geology of the Ararat region important to the discussion of flood geology and a universal-versus-local flood model?
And states (listen)
The claim of flood geologists is that all (or almost all) of the sedimentary rock on Earth formed at the time of Noah’s Flood, and this includes the sedimentary rock of the Ararat region. But Mount Ararat itself cuts across sedimentary rock, and so must be younger than this rock. The flood-geology scenario that is implied, according to the actual stratigraphic relationships present in the Mount Ararat region, is thus:
(1) sediments (and dead animals) were deposited out of the flood waters;
(2) then these sediments were compacted into fossil-rich sedimentary rock;
(3) next volcanic lava erupted, intruding into and flowing over this sedimentary rock;
(4) then the entire huge volcanic Ararat construct cooled; so that
(5) finally, Noah’s ark could land on Mount Ararat—all in the space of one year’s time!
And concludes –
Not only does this scenario propose a series of physical impossibilities but MORE importantly, the Bible claims none of this!
Carol Hill believes that “Jabel Judi” (Cudi Dag) is a mountain range surrounded by low hills in the north, where the Ark rested.
This is the earliest accepted landing site of the ark, but it also corresponds to where vineyards and olive trees are known to have been grown in antiquity. Remember Genesis 8:11 that says
“And the dove came into him in the evening; and lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth” (Gen. 8:11).
And then we will read next week in chapter 9
“And Noah began to be a farmer (husbandman) and he planted a vineyard.”
The Jabel Judi (Cudi Dag) region has the following advantages for being the landing place of Noah’s ark:
Jabel Judi is located within the borders of ancient Armenia.
It is located within the foothills of the Taurus Mountains where the average low temperature (for Cizre) is 35ºC,80 where the average precipitation is 500–600 mm/yr,81 and where the altitude is ~500 m82— all optimal conditions for the growing of both grapevines and olives.
Grapevines and fruit trees are typical of this region, and even in recent times numerous vineyards are grown along the Tigris River valley in the Cizre area.
If Noah had landed in the Jabel Judi area, he would have found perfect growing conditions for his vineyard.
Also, Jabel Judi is only ~80 miles from Nineveh a region that was renowned in ancient times for both its grapevines and olive trees.
Since the northern part of this region is within a 50-mile distance from Jabel Judi it is possible that a dove could have flown to this area and back to the ark with an olive leaf in one day, as required by the Genesis account.
Taking all of this, let’s begin to wrap up our study of the flood.
If the Genesis Flood is taken to be universal, then another major scientific problem arises regarding the capacity of the ark to carry all of the animal species on Earth and also logistics like:
How did animals migrate to the Old World from theNew World and from places like Australia?
Or, how did they get from Mount Ararat to places like Australia without crossing oceans and without leaving descendants in the Old World?
How did the ark carry food for all of these animals for one year’s duration?
How did only eight people—Noah, his wife, three sons,and three daughter-in-laws care for at least two of all of the animal species on Earth let alone seven?
How did large animals like the dinosaurs fit on the ark, if “all flesh” included extinct animals as well as nonextinct ones?
How could marine life have survived the flood? Salt Water and fresh water?
How did all of the various kinds of animals descend the steep side of Mount Ararat, which is even difficult for humans to climb in modern times?
Universal flood advocates counter these concerns by heaping up miracles.
Angels did the delivering, God did the collecting.
God caused all the animals on the ark to hibernate for a whole year, thus limiting their need for food and care, or shrunk them down to reduce the care of them.
How did these “only taxonomic families” (meaning not each individual species) that were taken on the ark, become all the present-day species in less than 5,000 years or so.
But most importantly, why does the Bible does not explain ONE SINGLE REASONABLE QUESTION?
The only mention the Bible makes of God’s role in the Flood is that he miraculously intervened to impose a great flood upon the earth (land) (Gen. 6:17), and that he protected Noah in that flood (Gen. 7:16, 8:1). LISTEN – God commanded Noah to do all of the rest: to build the ark (Gen. 6:14); to bring the animals alive into the ark (Gen 6:19–20); and to gather food for himself, his family, and the animals (Gen. 6:21), to be eaten while on the ark.
And we read, “And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him” (Gen. 6:22).
No miracles regarding the animals are mentioned, and if the Bible is to be taken at face value, literally, and as our emphatic manual of exhaustiveness, we must assume that Noah went out and gathered the animals himself. Another support for a geographic flood – unless you want to suggest that God teleported him around the globe to gather all the animals up, while he constructed this massive no nail ark to carry them, and calling people to repent.
This factor alone limits the geographic region of the Flood to Mesopotamia, because it is hardly conceivable (nor logistically possible) to envision Noah collecting animals from places like New Zealand, Australia, North America, or South America.
All of the animals named could have been gathered by Noah out of Mesopotamia – but the world making all told the numbers being in the several hundreds or perhaps a few thousand.
There is also no archaeological evidence for a universal flood. No flood deposits correlative with those in Mesopotamia have been found in Egypt, Syria, or Palestine, let alone in other parts of the world more distant from the Middle East.
Archaeological mounds in Syria and Palestine (such as Jericho), which exhibit fairly continuous occupation since at least 4500 BC, show no signs of a great flood.
Interestingly, even the Bible appears to question the claim of a universal flood as we look to Ezekiel 22:24: which says that “a land [Israel] was not “rained upon in the day of indignation” meaning the flood?”
Additionally, the Bible is not the only place where Noah’s Flood is recorded. The story of the great deluge has also been found on cuneiform tablets collected from archaeological sites in Babylonia, Assyria, and lands surrounding Mesopotamia, the earliest of these being a Sumerian inscription found at Nippur and belonging to the close of the third millennium BC.
While these nonbiblical texts have a definite mythological component to them, they still have a historical base that attests to an unusual environmental catastrophe that happened in the land of Mesopotamia at about the beginning of the third millennium.
These texts found in Mesopotamia and lands bordering it refer to a flood within Mesopotamia and to a righteous Mesopotamian man who survived the flood in a ship.
There is no archaeological evidence for a universal flood. Even regions close to or surrounding Mesopotamia do not contain correlative flood deposits.
The picture that emerges from all of the biblical and non-biblical evidence is that Noah’s Flood was confined to Mesopotamia, extending over a vast alluvial plain as far as the eye could see, from horizon to horizon (under the “whole heaven” or sky).
The top of all the hills (ziggurats?) were covered by this flood, and all people and animals were drowned except for Noah, his family, and the animals on the ark.
The flood was a real, historical event that covered—not the whole world— but the whole of Noah’s world.
A concept vital to understanding ALL of the Bible – their world instead of the whole world.
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