Where is the source of the controversy?
Many Christians will tell you the controversy comes from the Genesis account itself. They will claim that the text is allegory, or that mankind was all gathered into one area and the flood destroyed them, but not the entire world. Do they get this idea from the scriptures? I do not see how they could.
I believe this is an important topic for Christians and I write about this in love, trying to encourage others in their faith in God and in His inerrant Word.
Why is this Important?
This issue is an important one for Christians. When defending our faith and giving the reason for why we believe, it is not a strong witness to those who do not find the Bible credible to take a controversial story like this and obviously try to "cover for it". Most Christians are tolerant of other Christians who don't believe in the flood or creation story, so long as they do believe the core doctrines (as we should be). However, those on the outside who are familiar with the Bible lose patience with these believers because they can practically make the Bible say anything, rendering any logical, theological debate fruitless.This is a very slippery slope as well. If we can twist a passage like the flood account and make it fit in with mainstream science, we can make other passages fit in with mainstream culture. We have all seen this happen with church leaders today. The Bible teaches us that wide is the road that leads to destruction, so we should not be bothered if majorities oppose what the Bible teaches. I would also like to add that there is very strong evidence of a global flood, so we can also have added confidence in the truth of this passage.
There are some concepts contained in the first chapters of Genesis that are very essential to the understanding of the rest of the Bible. These topics include death (man and animals), the fall (man's spiritual death), our separation from God due to sin, and God's judgment for sinful behavior. If we let these teachings crumble, how can we expect others to find God's Word to be credible? These are very important topics contained in the first chapters of the first book; we should be confident in them.
We should also find hope in Genesis. If God created the living creatures by means of death, disease and survival of the fittest (aka evolution)--and called it "very good"-- why should we be hopeful for this heaven he has planned for us?
The Flood
What does the Bible say about the flood? For a minute, let's let go of all the scientific evidence and just look at what the Bible actually says. In my experience, the Christians that don't believe in a literal world-wide flood have not read or thought much about the Genesis flood account. |
| A local flood covering the highest mountains by 20 feet would be more difficult than a global flood covering them by 20 feet. © 2013 Answers in Genesis (www.AnswersInGenesis.org) |
Check it out for yourself and judge whether this passage is about a global flood, or a localized flood with Noah saving his farm animals or maybe some of the local critters. I have italicized words with global implications (and added notes inside parenthesis) since that is my view and this is my blog. ;-)
Ok, fine, I will likewise underline the words with localized implications.
Genesis 6
New International Version (NIV)
9 This is the account of Noah and his family.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So
God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the
earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to
destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress[c] wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.[d] (A massive boat! with space for over 100,000 sheep-sized animals and their food (1)) 16 Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit[e] high all around.[f] Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17 I am going to bring floodwaters
on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that
has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
Ch 7 The Lord then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. 2 Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. (a lot of birds for a localized flood that they could have easily escaped) 4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”
5 And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.6 Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. 7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8 Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, 9 male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah. 10 And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
13 On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. 14 They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. 15 Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. 16 The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord shut him in.
17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. 18 The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. 20 The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits. (impossible to have been local, there would have been spillage and the water could never have risen 15 cubits over the mountains containing them) 21 Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.
24 The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.
Chapter 8 begins by explaining that the flood waters remained on the earth for just over a year before Noah came out.
17 Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it.”
20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though[a] every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done (if this was a local flood, this has obviously happened since then) .
Chapter 8 wraps up with Noah sacrificing and 9 begins with God telling Noah's sons to multiply and fill the earth. It also speaks of God establishing a new order: man can eat meat, animals have the dread of man, and for anyone who takes a man's life, his life will be demanded. This seems pretty drastic for a post-local flood debrief.
8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”
17 So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”
Let's think about this logically:
-God gave Noah 120 years notice before sending the flood waters. That is obviously plenty of time to relocate, including the animals, to a safe place (if the flood we local).
-Genesis says that ALL living creatures (not on the ark) died, but if it were local, don't you think just one bird might have flown over a ridge and survived? This would make vs 21-23 in chapter 7 false.
-The boat was massive. Containing three decks with roughly the square footage of a football field each, there was a lot of space; almost 600 railroad cars worth of cargo space. At the time of this passage's writing, it is very doubtful that the author could have even close to an idea of the number of animals that would need to go on the ark. Yet the amount of space is sufficient for the known animal kingdom. There have been some very good studies done to see how feasible it would be to fit the animals on, as well as the logistical challenges Noah and his family would have encountered.
-The boat was very sea-worthy. The ark's length to width ratio is seen in many modern cargo vessels (even the battleship Oregon) because of the outstanding performance it provides in open seas. This massive boat was thousands of years ahead of it's time, which makes sense when we consider that Genesis says God gave him the dimensions.
-Jesus seemed to believe it was global. He used the flood as an example of how the end of the world will be: swift, surprising (to those not seeking the Lord), and global. Matthew 24:37-39.
-Peter said in the last days people would scoff at and deliberately forget the second coming, the fact that God created everything, and the flood that destroyed the ancient world.
-If this were a local flood, every time we see the rainbow in the sky, wouldn't we be reminded of the fact that God has broken his covenant throughout the ages?
God's word is good. It can be trusted. I can see how some people could have a hard time believing this as a true story. But I don't see how Bible-believing Christians don't believe it. The story is incredible! But isn't the rest of the book incredible as well? If we can explain away this account as a local flood, we can explain away the rest of the Bible if need be. If we truly believe that God's word is true, why would we let fallible men who don't believe in God, sway our trust in it? Christians seem to believe that scientists have proven that the flood never happened and that all of this was impossible. I have researched this subject a lot and I've come to find that the global flood explains a lot (almost everything) geologically. I have found the actual scientific support of the Genesis global flood to be much more persuading than anything secular scientists have offered for evolution or long ages. The actual evidence is another topic that I hope to cover soon.
For those who believe that the flood account is allegory, based off the Hebrew and the writing style, would you still maintain that view if there were overwhelming scientific consensus in support of a global flood? How convinced by the actual text itself are you? Are you trying to make God's perfect word fit in with fallible man's "facts"? I am equally convinced by the Bible and science that the flood was global. I plan to provide you with good scientific and geological evidence to support what the Bible says, sometime in the near future.
Thanks for reading, and God bless.
Related Posts:
5 Evidences of Noah's Flood -- #5: Geologic Evidence
5 Evidences of Noah's Flood--Evidence #4: Bent Rock Layers and Polystrate Fossils
Flood Legends From Around the World
(1) It has been calculated that a little more than half (54.75%) of the 2,773,925 cubic feet could store 125,000 sheep-sized animals, leaving over 1.5 million cubic feet of free space for food, water and other supplies. (see - http://www.icr.org/bible/bhta42.html)
No comments:
Post a Comment