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.

I’m secularly homeschooling my three. One of the topics to cover from an ancient history book is The Great Flood. I’m going to present the information from every view point and love that I can include your facts. Like my daughter says, “I believe in santa, god, the tooth fairy, and the easter bunny!”

It is the dispensationalist garbage sold by Cyrus Scofield and other and sponsored by the rothschilds that has led to confusion about taking scripture literally when in fact doing so is a complete contradiction to the truth. The Bible is just fine with the Earth being billions of years old but the dispensationalist zionist stooges will give the secularist fodder to bait them with all day long

Not taking the scripture literally is great. Especially with things like, say, Thou shalt not commit adultery… just kidding, but this is the main issue: If you agree things should not be taken literally, then who’s to say where the line is?

Just a small note I would like to make regarding biological aspects of this time. People who tend to lean toward a great flood also seem to agree that the earth is about 6 or 7000 years old give or take a few hundred years in each direction. Funny thing is that by taking this belief as gospel we are inferring that today’s alpha predators and today’s entire ecosystem that exists including the plants, animals, geology, weather, every single thing that ever existed existed at the same time . So somehow lions, tigers, bears, tyrannosaurus, terror birds, saber tooth cats, mammoths, wooly rhinos, etc all lived together but somehow lions beat out t-Rex? I mean when I even say this ou loud I can’t do it without laughing. And then I ask why is it that we don’t find fossilizations I modern species at the same level of strata that we do dinosaurs? Even if our animals today were saved from the flood only two of each kind were saved so just that in itself would say that we should be finding lions dead at the same level that we find a tricerratops. This is just so absurd to think. We can’t even have in this day and age apex predators living together because one would go extinct in competition for food. If humans lived with t-Rex there would be no humans. Period. A bunch of primative people chucking wooden spears at a 7 ton 45 feet long from head to tail t-Rex would never happen. Maybe there was a flood back then and to everyone in that region it seemed as if the whole world was flooded, but come on. These are people who got scared when the sun went down that it might not come back. Their world was only what they could travel to. And we know that Noah was a raging drunk according to the bible. Sometimes I get so drunk I see and hear things too. Or at least I’d tell you I did if I wanted everyone’s attention. These people are far before even a geocentric solar system. These people are pre solar system even! They didn’t know there were other giant rocks in the universe. So for us in this day and age to just accept the words of someone who didn’t even know if the sun would rise each day is like letting a blind guy lead you across a freeway during rush hour traffic while you’re blindfolded. It’s just stupid. People only could explain things in their understanding of that day and age. We have the knowledge and technology to to know that it’s physically impossible for such a great and destructive event to occur. But for some people if a new book of the bible written by Jesus was found that said the sky is red and the ocean is yellow there would be some people that would believe it and petition crayola to change the crayon colors because the bible says so. If there is a god why would he not want us to use the one thing that separates us from the animals? Our brain. Our ability to rationalize, explore, and draw conclusions. Seriously.

Good thinking. Many of these ancient stories are either legends that developed into alleged history, or vague records of a few thousand years old real disasters (which is very little in geological terms).
Actually the great survivors of all times are viruses and bacteria :) BTW, about missing fossilizations, I suggest reading ‘Almost Like A Whale’ (Steve Jones), especially Chapter 9.

There is more than 1 definition for the word cover. 1 definition is: Dealt with.

“15 cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered”

Genesis 7:20

I sure do not read that as the entire earth was enveloped in water.

Though the dimensions of a cubit are uncertain, if a cubit is around 20 inches squared (as suggested by some) that is only 25 feet of water.

That, prevailing over 150 days, would be enough to kill all life, and seems very significant.

But it does not seem major enough, that, after it dried up, we could find much proof of it today (beyond His story).

Also, all my life, the cells that comprise it, they are killed and replaced every 7 years.

The Almighty One, I regard Him as an awesome wordsmith.

But hey, thanks for the refresher: That volume of sphere is 4.2 times PI times radius to power of 3; and that earth’s radius is 6,400 km. I appreciate that numerology!

You may have passed your state schooling, but looks like you failed the test of mind from The Almighty One.

I can find absolutely no time stamp in The Book of Genesis indicating when earth was created.

I have no idea where people get the notion, after reading The Book of Genesis, that earth is only like 6,000 years old.

Did they even read it???

The “traditional” estimation of about 6,000 years comes from comparing “known” events mentioned in the Bible to their historical dating… specifically the death of Nebuchadnezzar… and then taking the rest of the biblical text literally.

This is of course a non-scientific method, but then most people thinking is non-scientific.

Sorry, there is a time stamp.

But we have no way of knowing, using our mortal brains, how long 1 day really is, as it is written in Chapter 1 of Genesis. For all I know, 1 day described in Chapter 1 could be an interval of 360 million years, as us humans know them, and that would put the 6 days of creating earth, and life on earth, at 2.16 billion years, and adding a day of rest, that brings it to 2.52 billion years, before chapter 2, when man is created. One definition of day, is, period or era.

According to chapter 2, man was naked. And man was given the ultimatum of death, only if they ate fruit which could make them gods. As it goes, the fruit was eaten.

After that, they were given COATS OF SKINS, sent to til earth, where they lived to be around 900 years old. After the flood, and the generations of Noah, man couldn’t live much beyond 120 years (which is about the max you could live today, if you lived a supremely healthy lifestyle).

It sure did take a while (900 years or so) for death to come knocking on man’s door.

Does that mean that ultimatum given had no teeth? I doubt that.

Seems to me:
First man created was immortal.
First man created had NO SKINS.
That magical fruit was the curse/blessing of mortality.

Nebuchadnezzar 1 was a Babylonian, who lived more than 3000 years ago.

Those Babylonians seem to have some fetish about their SKINS from BEFORE. It is as if, they refuse to accept, they been CUT from their memory. Their vices of choice seem to be sleeping and beating dead horses.

I actually skipped most of The Book Of Daniel, and jumped straight to The Books of Matthew and Revelation, after I got thru Torah.

I should have a closer read there.

Since Babylon has been mentioned, perhaps I can share a poem.

You think you can go, over His head.
You made it, my friend, so lie in your bed.
Didn’t He tell you, your bed is a coffin.
Ad nauseam it was, He said it so often.

Sorry. 1 more correction.
I said awe some wordsmith.
I think that is what I am.
What I should have said above is:
awe full wordsmith.

By the way, we do know that as the Earth is gradually slowing, days in its history were actually shorter.

The dinosaurs, for example, saw a 20-23 hours in a day :)

The below wiki, describing what you have, I think is more speculative than Genesis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_acceleration

The difference with Genesis is, it is way easier to read, and, when you read it, if you have read it, you do get the sense it is coming from an Authority, who is not telling us all He knows, for our own sake.

But, why not try to match these 2:

Scientific speculation says earth is 4.5 billion years old.
But above speculation (1 day = 360 million years) puts the Most High’s 6 days of building earth at 2.5 billion years old.

Some discrepancy, huh? Can it be explained by this?

“And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”
~Genesis 1:2

It does not say here, the earth was without SUBSTANCE, but only without FORM. Perhaps there was no land, yet, only water…

Onto the next verses:

“And God said, let there be light, and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day”

So here you see, a time stamp, 1 day, the first day, was expressed for making Day and Night.

There was no time stamp expressed for how long the earth was without form.

So, it seems to me, the 6 days of building earth, did not include this first line of Genesis:

“IN THE beginning God created the heaven and the earth”
~Genesis 1:1

So, it seems to me, the popular scientific speculation, that earth is 4.5 billion years old, may not be all that contrary to Genesis, at least I am inclined to speculate.

As for the earth’s rotational rate, the number 12 was drilled pretty heavily in Genesis. So I’ll sticking with 12 hours (half day) and 24 hours (full day) as the decided upon rotational rate for His earth, when His made men got here.

I’d say your key phrase is “Can it be explained by this?”

When trying to settle conflicts between old traditional text and new scientific knowledge, you can always *interpret* the old text in ways that satisfy one’s desired results :)

New?

“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”
~Ecclesiastes 1:9

Putting things in proportions: The Ecclesiastes text is just a bit newer than the sun itself…

Was it new, or but a rewording of what already is, has been, and shall be?

GOD does have the power to create something from nothing and make sth disappear, after all, wasn’t universe created from nothing? and this goes on…………..if u don’t like the word “GOD” u can call it the supreme force that created universe, I thinks it would be a piece of cake to make some water appear and disappear on a tiny planet ;)

If we assume there is something (no matter how you call it) that can create anything from nothing/anything, then there is no need for all those tons of strange excuses people use to explain Biblical “miracles”. Actually there’s also no need for any scientific research. Anything is possible any time.

Uh… I think I gotta repent on some of the reasoning above…

If God made Adam and Eve 6,000 years ago, but this planet is, like 4 billion years old, the dry land on which is called Earth (with a capital E), it doesn’t sound reasonable to me that it took God 4 billion years to realize how to make man and woman.

I think a scientific, word meaning, comparative, and reasoning method to understanding the word of God, and His servants, is the sound way to go.

I got a link to this graph, of the Earth’s temperatures, for almost the past 20,000 years, over Greenland, that was posted on http://www.marketwatch.com in a story about global warming, by a commenter, Gordon Dressler:

http://theresilientearth.com/files/images/102-Younger_Dryas_Temperatures.png

If I may round to the nearest 1,000, Earth’s temperatures, over Greenland, appeared to hit a turning point around 13,000 years ago; and around this time, temperatures appeared to increase good.
By 10,000 years ago, temperatures appeared to be remarkably good and stable, through today, and have followed what appeared to me as a narrow path.

If I may round to the nearest 1,000, around 6,000 years ago, I think that is the consensus most scholars have regarding when Adam and Eve got made…

So 13,000 minus 6,000 is 7,000. I found another match in 2 Peter 3:8:

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

7 days times 1000 calculates to 7,000 years.
Yea, rounded to the nearest 1000, that is, 13,000 years ago, you think that is a sound assessment for almost THE FIRST DAY OF HIS STORY?

Before this warming period, do you think any humans on this planet were walking around, saying: isn’t life good?

At this time, it appears we are still near the bottom of the range in the narrow path of temperatures. But I’m not a weather forecaster.

Oh another thing… I don’t find anywhere in Genesis that it says, Planet.
It is commonly said, Planet, Earth, and/or, planet, earth, by people in this day…

Most of your description that talks about “warming period” — refers to the last of many many periods and cycles of warming and cooling.

You have just tried a school math not a university level math. To say no is too easy rather than to bring a truth forward. Don’t pretend to say NO to God.Sooner or later you will came to know the truth of the flood and God as well.

Bud,

The period that followed the most recent warming period was so much more stable than the period that followed the 2nd most recent warming period, that I think such improvement is significant.

samir,

I suspect you would not be willing to further explain your comment if I asked; and your comment is so very far from specific; and it sounds derogatory.
You mention truth, but, as I read it, your comment has omitted all the substance of what you may be trying to say.

I loved your facts, analysis,and computations. Most of all, I enjoyed the manner in which you sprinkled some sarcasm into your line of reasoning.
The Truth is what what matters, and not all the mumbo jumbo stories written by our ancestors. Albeit, for what they thought would be for the greater good. Now all we have is a bunch of religious fanatics interpreting gospels and other non-sense; pitting man against man. Fear not, the truth is out there.

Excellent work

:-)

Offering my current understanding of things (I’m always learning!)
1. The earth started covered completely in water.
2. God put in a firmament(canopy) in the midst of the water to divide it.
3. God gathered the water (above the firmament) into one place to create land. (hello Pangaea)
> To this point the earth always had enough water to cover it completely. God separate this (hello earth’s crust/mantle!)
> Hmm, that should mean there should have been a great body of water beneath the crust of the earth then..
4. Noah’s flood: “all the springs of the great deep burst open, the floodgates of the heavens were opened”
This excerpt from Genesis describes the breach of the firmament (crust/mantle) and the great body of water “bursting” forth. Were these waters hot coming from deep in the earth? Ever took a steaming hot shower? Think of that on a global scale. Hello rain.
So what happened? Was the rupturing of the earth, allowing the waters to burst forth, when Pangaea broke apart? And if these waters receded, where did it all go?
Hello ringwoodite. Google it. Then accept that the information you discover comes from man’s limited understanding of an all-knowing, all powerful creator. Just because we can not understand where the water went, does not mean it did not happen.
Ringwoodite is found deep in the earth. It also contains roughly 1% water. Something completely unfathomable to scientists decades ago. At just 1% water, there is enough ringwoodite in earth’s transition zone (520km-660km deep) to be holding more water than all the earth’s oceans COMBINED.
God’s word is the Truth. Science has always known. Man has not. We’ll all get there eventually.

You must make up your mind, whether you trust the scientific method or not.

If you don’t, stop quoting ‘Pangaea’ (hundreds of millions of years ago, not thousands, and not the first supercontinent), stop mentioning sizes, depths and distances, etc.

If you do, then you know ‘Noah’ is ancient legend, developed during the recent 0.0001% of Earth’s life.

I think the “flood” was not literally water, as in H2O, and should be read figuratively.

“15 cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered”

Genesis 7:20

Assuming a cubit is around 20 inches, meaning this is water rising 25 feet, how is this enough to cover the mountains, and kill all life on the mountains? Wouldn’t the water on the top of the mountain flow to the bottom, and not be effective at killing life at the top of the mountain?

Instead, I figure this is perhaps the water of life, as in: blood.

And I figure this flood is perhaps the result of extremely and rapidly rising internal blood pressure, that caused people to explode.

A body exploding (or parts of a body, or a part of a body) could cause blood to spatter 25 feet high, couldn’t it?

And if villages of people lived in mountains, than, so to speak, blood would cover the mountains, wouldn’t it?

Here is a clip from the movie, The Kingsman, where peoples head are exploding, because of the activation of an internal chip, implanted by the character played by SAMUEL JACKSON.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNJzrvtnoQE

In the movie SAMUEL JACKSON’S character’s last name is VALENTINE.

Coincidentally, the character, MR. VALENTINE, made a reference to Noah before this scene.

Oh, well… let it be blood. I think it was mucus…

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Plasma. That’s what the waters were.

They burst onto earth when the firmament cracked above Lybia, letting in the heat from sun light.

Check out the color of the Lybian glass fields. Almost the same color as the sky at sunset and sunrise.

It would be like a gigantic lightning bolt electrified the entire planet.