Great Flood

The Flood, by Michaelangelo, detail from the Sistine Chapel, 1509.

Cultures around the world record a world-destroying flood in their oral or written histories. Today 60% of Americans accept as true the Biblical account of the Great Flood.

The Flood accounts

The best known of the flood accounts are, the two intermeshed versions found in the book of Genesis, and the version found in the Gilgamish Epic. Both are written accounts. The Genesis account is the most detailed of any of the accounts, and the one against which others are usually compared. It has also been studied the most, with a number of terms used in reference to it, including the Flood, Noah's Flood, the Deluge, the Great Flood, and the Noahic flood. The terms pre-diluvian and post-diluvian are used to refer to the times before and after the flood respectively.

A table comparing specific details in a number of different flood accounts can be found here.

The Genesis account

The Genesis account is the most detailed account. In it, God warned Noah that He was going to destroy the world with a flood, because of the wickedness of mankind. Noah was to build an ark and take on it his family and representatives of all air-breathing, land-dwelling creatures. The ark was to be 300 cubits long by 50 cubits wide by 30 cubits high (approximately 450 feet long, by 75 feet wide, by 45 feet high), have three decks, and rooms.

God brought the animals and birds to Noah, and there were, per Gen 7:2 two of the "unclean" animals and seven (or seven pairs) of the "clean", and per Gen 6:19-20 "two of every sort".

After Noah and his family and all the creatures were on board, God shut the door of the ark. The flood was brought on by the eruption of subterranean water ("the fountains of the deep were opened"), and rain. The rain lasted nearly six weeks (40 days and nights). The flood waters apparently continued to rise for 150 days, but it was just over a year before the waters had receded enough for the occupants of the ark to leave.

The ark is recorded as having come to rest on the mountains of Ararat, taken by many today to be the existing mountains of that name. God put a rainbow in the clouds, and said that it was to be a reminder that he would never again destroy the world in a flood. (Genesis does not say that this was the first ever rainbow.) He also told Noah that it was now okay to eat meat.

The Gilgamish Epic account

The council of the gods decided to destroy mankind with a flood, but Utnapishtim was warned by the god who had made man, Ea, to build a boat to take all living being. The length, width, and height were each 120 cubits (about 180 feet). It had seven stories.

The gods got frightened by the flood and retreated to heaven where they cowered and wept. The flood lasted six days and seven nights, and was accompanied by wind and storm. Utnapishtim send out a dove followed by a swallow, but both returned, unable to find land. He then sent a raven, which didn't return.

Dr. Jonathan Sarfati comments on the Gilgamish Epic:

It is common to make legends out of historical events, but not history from legends. ... For instance, in Genesis, God’s judgment is just, he is patient with mankind for 120 years (Genesis 6:3), shows mercy to Noah, and is sovereign. Conversely, the gods in the Gilgamesh Epic are capricious and squabbling, cower at the Flood and are famished without humans to feed them sacrifices. That is, the human writers of the Gilgamesh Epic rewrote the true account, and made their gods in their own image.

Other ancient references

The Assyrian King Ashurbanipal, who lived in the seventh century B.C., recorded, "I have read intricate tablets inscribed with obscure Sumerian or Akkadian...inscriptions on stone from before the Flood."

Common Themes for Flood Accounts

Cause

Many of the accounts say that the flood was caused by God or some equivalent being. In Genesis, it was Yahweh. In the Gilgamish Epic, it was the council of the gods . In the Bundaba (Australian aboriginal) flood story, it was Ngowungu, the Great Father. The Greeks recorded it as being Zeus.

Purpose

When the cause of the flood is attributed to a god, the reason is frequently said to be for mankind's wickedness. Genesis adds that "every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time". The Miao account from China says, in verse, "These did not God's will nor returned His affection. / But fought with each other defying the Godhead. / Their leaders shook fists in the face of the Mighty." A Navajo account says that it was because of "their sins of adultery and constant quarreling".

What saved the people

People were generally saved either by floating out the flood, or fleeing to the top of a mountain. In the former case, the vessel took a variety of forms. A Hopi Indian story has them surviving in the hollow stems of giant reeds The Greek story has them surviving in a chest. In Genesis, Noah was instructed by God to build an ark to dimensions and other specifications included in the account.

Who was saved?

The survivors were often a single family. An Australian aboriginal account has Ngadgja, the Supreme One, telling Gajara to take his wife, his sons, and his sons' wives. The Masai account from East Africa has Tumbainot taking his two wives, his six sons, and their wives. A Hawaiian story has Nuu taking his wife and three sons. Noah took his wife, his three sons, and their wives.

Birds sent out

Genesis describes Noah sending out birds to see if there was yet dry land. Initially this was unsuccessful, but a subsequent attempt was successful when a dove didn't return. In the Hopi account also, they unsuccessfully sent out birds to find land. An Australian aboriginal account has a cuckoo not returning because it found land. The Masai account has Tumbainot sending out a dove, which returned because it had no place to rest.

A rainbow

The Masai account has four rainbows signifying that God's wrath was over. A Hawaiian account has the god Kane leaving a rainbow as a perpetual sign of his forgiveness. From an Australian aboriginal story comes this account:

Ngadja, the Supreme Being, put the rainbow in the sky to keep the rain-clouds back. The rainbow lies bent across the sky; he ties up the clouds behind it and the rain does not come. The rainbow keeps the clouds back and protects us so that the rainfall does not rise too high. Our people understand the significance of it. When we see the rainbow we say, ‘There will not be any abnormally heavy rain.’

Genesis says that the rainbow would be a reminder that God would never again destroy the world with a flood.

Criticisms

See also criticism in Noah's Ark and Flood Geology.

Critics of the global flood suggest that the flood accounts are unrelated accounts of local floods, or stories influenced by the arrival of missionaries.

Other critisisms that have been posed by skeptics include:

1. Angular unconformities – Angular unconformities are where sediments are laid down in layers, then tilted and eroded, then new sediments are deposited on top. How does a global flood simultaneously deposit, tilt, and erode in the same exact place?

2. Radiometric dating – All common forms of radiometric dating, including C14, K-Ar, Ar-Ar, Rb-Sr, Th-Pb, U-Pb, and fission track. The dates derived from these diverse methods, when properly interpreted rather than intentionally misapplied, show that all but the very most recent deposits in the geologic column is vastly older than any postulated flood.

3. Fossil Sorting – The sorting of fossils in the geologic record is consistent with evolution and geology across all formations worldwide. There are basically no fossils of dinosaurs found with modern mammals, even when such dinosaurs could fly. There are no flowering plants in the Cambrian, no grasses, no mammals, and no birds. The overall sorting does not show any evidence consistent with a flood or settling in water.

4. Varves – How does one create 20 million annual layers, each layer which would have taken at least a month to settle due to hydrodynamics as is observed in the Green River Formation? How does one explain seasonal of pollen grains found in the layers?

5. Sedimentation rates – Why would there be Precambrian rocks below ones feet in the Canadian Shield area, yet the entire geologic column in the Williston Basin in North Dakota? Why would a global flood scour down to the Precambrian in one place yet at the same time deposit tens of thousands of feet of sediment in another when it is exactly the same process? Giant post-pyramid ice ages are not an explanation as there is no written record or other evidence of increased historical glaciation to the extent needed to scour the Canadian Shield down in the last 4500 years, not to mention such Precambrian rocks elsewhere on Earth like South Africa.

6. Lava layers with ancient soils between flows – How could lava forms which only exist with a land surface interface create interbedded deposits with paleosoils?

7. Ice sheets – Ice caps can’t reform in the time allotted since any global flood of 4500 years ago.

8. Ice core data with correlated known volcanic events – Ice cores can be dated back by multiple methods nearly a million years, yet show no evidence of a global flood.

9. Ocean core data – Ocean cores would show unsorted piles of terrestrial life and different distributions in grain sizes than observed. They would also show little difference in thickness between the mid Atlantic ridge and near subduction zones, which is not what is observed.

10. Paleomagnetism – Because the Earth’s magnetic field has reversed polarity and has wandered over the globe in the past, certain igneous rocks show such preferred magnetic orientations when sufficiently cooled. By mapping these directions and reversals, which correlate with radioisotope dating and stratigraphy, it is easily shown that the vast majority of seafloor sediments, along with most volcanic rock, are way too old to have been deposited by any flood. In fact such measurements are one of the great evidences for plate tectonics, which alone invalidate a global flood.

11. Volcanism – According to ‘flood geology’ every igneous rock layer that overlays sedimentary rock would have to be less than 4500 years old. Yet, historical records indicate this tremendous amount of simultaneous volcanic activity could not have occurred in recent times because someone would have noticed, becoming extinct and all when the atmosphere becomes unbreathable. Such a position directly contradicts the existence of the Deccan Traps which are up to 2 km thick and 500,000 square km in extent, yet supposedly erupted in India despite any historic evidence, after such a flood.

12. Ore deposit formation rates – Most ore deposits require a longer period of time to separate their constituent elements and then cool to create an economically viable source of minerals.

13. Evaporites – The existence of evaporate deposits thousands of feet thick are incompatible with any global flood as they are formed through evaporation rather than through the addition of fresh water.

14. Carbonates – The huge amount of CO2 in the atmosphere prior to being locked into carbonate rock would have made the planet resemble Venus. There would have been no life to drown.

15. Microfossil deposits - Thick deposits of microfossils in limestone, diatomaceous chert, and chalk that could not settle to such a degree of thickness in the time allotted for any global flood.

16. Thick deposits of sand - Sand is the result of weathering and working of formally solid formations, requiring long long times to form and accumulate.

17. Aeolian sand deposits – Wind deposited sandstone is found above and below water deposited limestone. One example is the Cococino formation which is both overlain and overlies limestone.

18. Overthrust formations – the time and pressure required to cause overthrust formations is far greater than can occur in any post-flood historic time.

19. Formation of geologic features such as mountains and valleys – How did something like the Himalaya Mountains form without anyone noticing all those earthquakes? How were valleys cut between such mountains in less than 4500 years?

20. River meanders – River meanders incised in rock can only be caused by gradual uplift, not through a year’s worth of soft sediment deposition.

21. Glacial weathering – glacial deposits and weathering such as U-shaped valleys require longer than 4500 years to form.

22. Batholith formation – Why isn’t the Sierra Nevada granitic batholith still hot as it would have taken several million years to cool?

23. Differential weathering – How could the Sierra Nevada and the Appalachians show such different weathering if each are the exact same age of only 4500 years old?

24. Banded iron formations and red beds – Banded iron formations can’t form in the presence of significant oxygen. Yet they were supposedly deposited in a flood which supposedly allowed animals to breathe both before and after.

25. Water in confined aquifers – The chemistry of water may be measured as to its constituents, as any municipal water authority already knows. Under flood conditions, the water chemistry in a confined aquifer would have changed as lower elevation aquifers would contain more salt than higher aquifers as the flood waters diluted the salt content in the recharge zone. Not only is this behavior not shown by any known confined aquifer, but the age of such water according to the laws of physics is vastly older than any flood may have deposited.

26. Worldwide iridium layer – Although any worldwide flood evidence is lacking, there is a worldwide iridium layer at the K-T boundary where it exists. How could this iridium layer have been deposited among all those swirling waters in a flood?

27. Deformed structures in metamorphosed sediments – There are areas in metamorphic rock where pebbles and even fossils have been stretched and deformed in processes that would have taken several times any 4500 years since a global flood.

28. Compression of all fossil life into too short a time period – If all species represented by fossils, coal, and petroleum from throughout the geologic record lived simultaneously, they would have been standing on each other, an ecological impossibility.

29. Differential mineralization of fossils – Remains of buried humans in historic times show minimal mineralization. This increases overall with extinct mammals, then extinct dinosaurs, then extinct trilobites and ammonites.

30. Existence of soil after flood – Soil is a delicate mixture of organic and inorganic materials. How could any soil exist after an environment that was supposedly turbulent enough to destroy all the earth’s crust?

31. Tectonic spreading rates – Observed tectonic spreading rates indicate that there is no evidence of any disturbance due to any global flood 4500 years ago.

32. Tar pits – If all petroleum was caused by some global flood, how can there be tar pits filled with land fossils that have not become coal or oil?

33. Caverns – Caverns carved from dolomite such as exist in West Texas can’t form in as little as 4500 years.

34. Multiple glaciations – There are at least four major separate evidences of glaciations in the geologic record separated by eons. How could all four occur during a flood while supposedly underwater?

35. Meteoric impacts – For the evidence of meteoric impacts to be buried under sediments indicate that such impacts all occurred in the span of one year. Such a bombardment would allow for no life due to a lack of sun.

36. Hydrocarbon formation – The amount of hydrocarbon deposits in the ground from organic causes represent a greater biomass than is possible to have formed within 4500 years.

37. Conglomerates within conglomerates within conglomerates within conglomerates – Conglomerates are made up of diverse weathered rock that is eroded then recemented. In order to have a 4th level conglomerate there needs to be four episodes of weathering and recementation of rocks which are often impossible to form and erode in 4500 years such as when some within the conglomerate matrix are igneous or metamorphic rock.

However, Nozomi Osanai responds that "...the detailed nature of the widely spread statements has common elements to the Bible. In fact, even people who live far from the sea or in mountainous areas have flood traditions which are similar to the Genesis account."

And Murray Adamthwaite responds regarding the missionary influence, "...that explanation fails since in many cases secular anthropologists gathered the stories before missionaries reached these tribes with the Gospel. In other cases missionaries have related how they indeed told the story of Noah, only to find that the tribal folk already had a similar tale in their own legends."

Modern explanations

Black Sea theory

In 2000, explorers discovered evidence that humans lived where the Black Sea now is and speculated the sea was created during a great flood . Dr. Robert Ballard expanded on this theory, postulating that the Black Sea was much lower during the Ice Age (including the finding of a beach thousands of feet underwater), and when the walls holding back the Mediterranean Sea at the Bosporus broke, the sea rushed in and drowned the inhabitants; those who survived told the tale orally, and according to Ballard this became the basis for the flood accounts of Genesis and Gilgamesh [1]. This theory is for a local flood, and not the world-wide flood as recorded in Genesis and many other cultural traditions. It also doesn't fit with many other details of the Genesis account.

Flood geology

See main article: Flood geology

Flood geology is the study of the Earth's geology from the point of view that the Genesis account is true and accurate, and that evidence of the Flood can be found in the geology of the Earth.

Until the rise of uniformitarian geology in the early 19th century, most geologists accepted the Noahic deluge as part of geology. But James Hutton proposed in 1795 that geology ought to be based on the processes that we see happening now, thereby automatically ruling the Flood out of consideration. During the 19th century a number of "scriptural geologists" held out against the rising acceptance of Hutton's principles, but they fought a losing battle and interest in flood geology virtually died out by the end of the 19th century.

However, in the second half of the 20th century, interest was revived amongst people keen to show that the biblical account was correct, and a small but growing number of geologists are now studying this field again, although the vast majority of geologists still reject the idea of a global flood on Earth.

Flood geologists propose that such a world-wide, year-long flood would have caused massive erosion, sedimentation, and geological movements, and leaving plenty of evidence in the geological record. Many propose that there was a single continent before the flood that broke up during the flood. The idea of tectonic plate movement was proposed by creationary scientist Antonio Snider in 1859, although it was not until several other scientists had proposed similar ideas that the idea was adopted by mainstream scientists in the last few decades of the 20th century.

According to flood geologists, the flood resulted from subterranean water erupting to the surface ("the springs of the great deep burst forth"—Genesis 7:11, NIV), combined with 40 days and nights of rain. Although the rain stopped after 40 days, the flood waters continued to rise for 150 days, and lasted just over a year before Noah and the others on the boat were able to leave. During the flood, there was massive tectonic activity, including some land rising up and other land dropping, such that the waters ended up in newly-deepened oceans. All the animals and birds (except those on the ark), and large numbers of sea creatures perished, and many of them were buried so quickly that they became fossils, accounting for the vast majority of fossils existing today.

Flood geology also proposes that the flood waters swept together and buried large mats of vegetation ripped from the surface of the Earth, forming the coal beds that are mined today.

External Links

• Greek Myths: Deucalion and the Flood
• Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet 11 (Flood Story)
• Geological evidence from Northwest Creation
• Genesis Files website
• [2]
• Was the Flood Global? Answers in Genesis article
• Black Sea theory, from Dr. Robert Ballard and National Geographic
• Native American flood story
• Collection of Flood myths