It rained for 40 days but we saw they effects for 150 days after. (Genesis 7 Verse 24)

Thanks!

Fact 1: The chapter indeed says so.

Fact 2: The chapter also distinguishes between this and the actual raining.

Fact 3: Even you replace “40″ by “150″ or even “190″, the result does not become “sane”.

Both the 40 days and the 150 days are probably part of the same fiction/story that evolved over time.

A couple of things to note. First, Gen 7:11 states that the “springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened”, implying that water levels rose not only as a result of rain but also through the supernatural release of underground waters, which could explain the rapid water rise much more easily. Second, many who study Genesis believe that the earth was covered in a “water canopy” before the flood (based on Gen 1:6), which created greenhouse-like conditions that may have led to the longer lifespans seen pre-flood in the Bible, which was released at the time of the flood. I’m not sure about that physics-wise. My leanings are that when it says the flood covered the whole earth it means the whole known earth, which at that time was pretty much restricted to the middle east and northwest africa, which would require considerably less water. Although after the miracles I have seen in my life I would not doubt that He could have done it any way He wished. If there really is an all-knowing, all-powerful God out there, I doubt He would go “Oh, shoot, I forgot about the salinity issue. There go all the fish. I guess once those 2Oth century scientists figure out salinity more I’ll figure out what I should have done.” Maybe, just maybe, He’s a bit bigger than that.

First of all, you have to distinguish between what the Biblical story “says” and the actual reality. If you take the story *literaly*, then it does not matter where the water came from, because – scientifically speaking – there has never been such amount of water on Earth, in Earth and around Earth.

Of-course if you explain things as being “supernatural” (your words), then it is equivalent to saying there is no need to explain *anything*. For that matter see the chapter “It’s a Miracle” (http://thetruthiswrong.com/indeed/media/book/chapter-03a-it%e2%80%99s-a-miracle/) in this website.

Another interesting thing you mention is that the Earth was different “at that time” (your words). Again: If you take things literally, “that time” was no more than 5000 years ago, when the Earth was not different. If you don’t take things literally then this opens up a whole new interesting topic for discussion of what should be taken literally and what not :-)

There is nothing too difficult for God. That’s what faith is all about. You can not understand the Bible at all unless you are a child of God. Which is to say Born Again (Born from above)

Does anyone know about what year this was supposed to have happened? Christianity is one of the newest religions if you really study Earth history. The year it happened is really important because that would tell us why we still have many of the ancient cultures and religions that the flood was supposed to have wiped out.

To feeper: I mentioned this above – if you explain things as “nothing too difficult for God”, then it is equivalent to saying there is no need to explain (or even research) *anything*. The rest of the “born again” stuff is not really defined… just a bunch of words, as far as I’m concerned (unless you define things clearly).

To Jeremie: If you interpret the story literally, then this was supposed to have happened around 2000 BC. In practice there are several more ancient disasters associated with the later development of this ancient story.

A good common sense article Bud,which begs the question again, is the bible inerrant or not, obviously from a common sense scientific point of view it is not. But to be kind lets say that the bible is inerrant within a mythical framework, that it does verify the deluge myth found in many other previous accounts, as for it actually having happened literally as stated in the OT it’s a choice between believing in a myth or reality.

I can understand your comment in two different ways. My view is that “belief” starts where “knowledge” ends. Of-course we can only have partial knowledge about ancient past events (this includes several “flood-like” disasters in various locations). Nothing though *literally* like the biblical story – a thing you seem to agree with.

There is absolutely zero proof that this story of a great flood ever happened, and MUCH evidence against it.

First of all the concept of a watery canopy is just ridiculous. Having all that extra water in our atmosphere doesn’t just sit there suspended. It will add weight, increasing our atmospheric pressure. The pressure would be so great that blood would actually boil. So there goes that theory.

As to Noah being 600 years old, come on folks. Are you that stupid?

It is impossible to create a billion people in 5-6 generations starting from just 2 people. unless pregnancy lasted less than a day. And if that was true, why is it longer now? Why go through the trouble of changing our pregnancy terms?

If god was omniscient he would have foreseen the degeneration of the people he created in such a short time. He would have known this would happen, thus how could he be sorrowful? If he is omnibenevolent how is it benevolent to knowingly create a race that you know will degrade in such a short time? I consider that malicious and evil.

All this is pretty damning proof there was no great flood ever, but the most damning piece of the puzzle is; why are there no written records of the various cultures during this time of the great flood? Egypt would have been flooded but their society clearly survived, so how can you explain that? They were not wiped out at all, and they were not on the ark. so that proves what god said was wrong. not everything died. Also there is NO explanation of the America’s, Australia, or any other continent with populated people on it. All those people would have been wiped out. They survived, and we found civilizations on each as they were discovered. There are maps of this time from several areas that show the earth was the same as it is now, continents were not together.

This tall tale, like every other part of the bible is stolen from previous myths that might loosely be based on some truth, but changed much over the thousands of years of time in between.

Generally speaking I agree with you, with two remarks:

(1) It seems to be always possible to find excuses that explain whatever you want. If all else fails you can always come up with the “miracle” excuse.

(2) Not *every other* part of the bible is “stolen”. Like many ancient texts, some is and some isn’t…

Hello. Old article. but interesting. I’m reading Stephen Baxter’s “FLOOD”. It’s a great book. you should pick it up anyway.
But in the book he actually DOES use this subterrainian sea thing.
the “springs of the great deep burst forth”.

Thanks for the article. I professionally reserve the right to be undecided. ;)

Thanks :) In practice there’s more-or-less a fixed amount of water, and that includes the subterranean sources.

One creative Jewish excuse I heard of is of huge waves, each time covering OTHER mountain at any given time.