Genesis 7, the Flood

Chapter 7 of Genesis opens with God telling Noah that He has seen Noah righteous, and for that reason Noah is to go into the Ark with his family. Because we know all righteousness is in Christ, it then becomes evident that Noah believed in the Promise of God regarding a Messiah, and lived accordingly, as God enabled him.

We then see the directions God gave Noah concerning the animals: clean animals were to be taken on by sevens and unclean by twos. A note here is important: we tend to be very ethnocentric even in our science, thinking that the way WE classify animals in biology the THE way to do it. The Bible uses several methods of classification, and none of them are like ours! Here we have one simple method: clean and unclean. This, however, also involves the distinction between those animals with nephesh, or a soul (or unique personality) and those without. Those with nephesh which are land and air animals are those with 'the breath of life' and are the only ones directed onto the Ark.

Another method of classification here is hinted at, and it is the main one of many older cultures: classification by locomotion. How did the animal move? Crawling, flying, swimming...? Later we will see that bats are thus classified with birds and whales are big fish. This is a perfectly fine way to classify animals. It is just not our current way.

Another interesting note is that here we have reference to clean and unclean animals generations before Moses would be given the law. This gives us evidence, along with the mention of violence, evil, and murder in chapters 4 and 6, that God's basic law was already known by men, although it had not been codified yet.

And so, seven days before the Flood starts, the animals start loading. It must have been quite a sight to the men standing around jeering, which they no doubt were.

And God tells Noah before any of it starts that it will rain for forty days and forty nights, "and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made." This phrase is often taken by those who challenge the Bible as proof that the Bible is false, for God must have saved the fish and insects, etc. But that challenge is simply taking a phrase out of context, as both before and after, it is clear that 'face of the earth' is exactly what is being indicated, not all life on earth. All land animals outside the Ark would be killed. The FACE of the earth would be denuded of life.

And again we read that Noah obeyed the Lord completely. So at 600 years of age, Noah loads thousands of animals on a giant boat he has spent somewhere around a hundred years building and stocking, and gets his family on -- all with one drop of rain yet to fall. It was pure trust.

After a week the loading was done.

And then it started.

Pay close attention to the order of the catastrophe. The FIRST thing that happened was an explosion out of the ground of waters. That means these waters had to have been under enormous pressure; and that means heat. I don't want to bring in a lot of extra-biblical material, but it might be interesting to some to note that there are, in the flood memories of several ancient cultures, also the memory that these waters were scalding hot and burned up everything.

So we can infer two things without the Bible telling us specifically. First of all, these bursting waters would have brought up with them tons of soil and pulverized rock, shooting far into the air and coming down on people everywhere. And all of it was scalding hot. This heat in the water would mean that vast amounts would evaporate almost immediately and recycle within hours as torrents of rain. The vapor canopy was not needed for the rain, although there may have been one to add a layer of protection to the earth at one time. The steaming waters may also have helped punch holes in it or destroy it altogether, I don't know. But the Bible is clear that the main source of the water for the Flood was under the earth's crust.

Was this a local flood? No way. If ALL the fountains of the great deep were broken up, that means some kind of critical temperature and pressure had been reached for some reason under the earth's crust, and the explosive power along the vent lines must have been incredible. This was far, far more than some kind of water overflow around the Black Sea area!

And those exploding waters, like giant geyers of boiling mud and rock slamming thousands of feet into the sky, very probably upset the temperature balance of the atmosphere so that the 'windows of heaven' were indeed 'opened' and the recycling rains streamed down on earth for a full forty days and nights while water kept pouring out from under the crust of the earth, flooding everything.

Genesis 7:18 tells us the waters 'increased greatly,' and that ALL the high hills under the WHOLE heaven were covered to a depth of more than 20 feet.

"And all flesh died that moved upon the earth." There it is again. That specific statement regarding which life perished. It is repeated, for emphasis: "And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of catle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died."

Only Noah and his family were left.

And this chapter closes with the mention that the waters 'prevailed' upon the earth for 150 days. The indication here is that the Flood kept rising after the rains had finished. Once the earth was flooded and the initial pressure of the escaping waters released, the recycling of hot exploding waters would cease, so the rain itself only lasted 40 days and nights. But the waters continued to rise for another 110 days as the waters continued to pour out from the earth.

What on earth could have been going through Noah's mind, with thousands of animals on board wit him, and water everywhere outside along with the total devastation of the only world he knew?

And I sometimes wonder about his wife, his sons, and daughters-in-law. What must they have been thinking? No one could reassure them saying, "Hey, this is just like Noah and the Ark."

They WERE Noah and the Ark!

 

Choke.....gurgle...

You want an entire book in one post? LOL (laughing out loud).

I'll try to get some shorter material for you later today!

[ June 05, 2002, 11:54 AM: Message edited by: Helen ]

 

Here you go. I spent a little time on the google search engine and now you can read as much or as little as you like! One or two of the sites I selected are definitely pagan, but the stories they relate are interesting and on topic. Enjoy!

http://www.apologeticspress.org/rr/bibbul/2001/bb-01-54.htm

http://www.indians.org/welker/greatflo.htm

http://members.tripod.com/~Diogenes_MacLugh/flood.html

http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF11/1192.html

http://home.earthlink.net/~misaak/floods.htm

[ June 05, 2002, 08:55 PM: Message edited by: Helen ]

 

Hi Charlotte! (oh yeah, and Glen, too... )

If you look at Genesis 1:30, you will see that "to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures the move on the ground -- everything that has the breath of life in it -- I give every green plant for food." If you cross reference this with Genesis 7:14-15, you will see that these kinds are the exact ones taken on the Ark.

So, before the Flood, there was no meat eating among these animals; thus no predator or prey.

Now go to Isaiah 11:6-9, and you will see that this diet is the normal for God's holy Kingdom! The predator/prey situation is, I think, part of the bondage to decay that all creation is experiencing.

So what did they eat? Some kind of plant or group of plants, a vital portion of which did not make it through the Flood or simply could not grow in the conditions found in the world after the Flood. We know plants (think of soy) can have protein and amino acids, so it is not saying much to presume there were more plants with these nutrients before the Flood. After the Flood, however, meat eating became a necessity.

OK, now there were no water animals on the Ark. Only land animals and birds. The water animals had plenty of water, believe me! And there must have been the most enormous mats of floating vegetation during the Flood as well, and we know from those we have seen and studied in Florida and in Southeast Asia that they can sustain all manner of life -- I would assume including alligators!

Hippos? I don't know! I've never thought of that before! I wanted to give you a flip, funny answer like "under the part of the roof that leaked" or something, but the truth is I have no idea. Perhaps their requirements were different? Good question!

Mating during the Flood? I kind of doubt it with the larger animals, although I don't suppose that would be impossible. However I am willing to bet that the rodents never slowed down for a minute! If someone knows how to do the math, I know that two mice can become 36 in two months (it happened to us....don't ask!), and they don't care if it is light or dark or anything! Rats would certainly be the same, and there are probably other rodents as well which have no problem. In short, aside from driving poor Mrs. Noah nutty, I think the about-to-be carnivores would have had a reasonable diet, probably in combination of what Noah still had and their growing need for fresh protein driving them to hunt.

Hibernation? I don't know. I presume some of them did. I know when we had horses and if it was dark and rainy they would just sort of hang around in the stalls and be very still all day. Not hibernation, but not exactly burning extra calories, either! If I might hazard a wild guess, I would want to remember that because the world up until now had had no seasons but just always nice weather, that there might have been a degree of shock to the systems of some of the animals, more or less driving them into a state of semi-drowsiness for at least part of the journey. It's so hard to know! Animals then were different from now. We have the 'leftovers' in a sense -- the animals left after thousands of years of natural selection deleting from the genetic pools the robustness and ability to vary that their Ark ancestors had. So they may have had much more ability to survive strange things than the animals of today.

Something else just occurred to me, too! The animals were not afraid of man until after the year on the Ark! See Gen. 9:2. So the much more gentle relationship the people had with the animals would have been a help to all of them that year of confinement.

How were the animals taken care of? There are a lot of guesses, and some of them seem kind of bizarre, to say the least! Having worked with animals a bit, I can venture a bit here that might make sense..

First of all, there were only a few thousand animals on the Ark, not hundreds of thousands! The Biblical kind is probably roughtly equivalent to the taxonomic level of family. It is not anywhere near genus or species!

Most of the animals were small, and that was a help!

Since all the animals were vegetarians, there were probably quite a few that were free-feed, meaning they could have constant access to food all day and not over-eat. So feeding chutes or bins would have made sense. Likewise, running water along a built-in trough which ran the length of all the enclosures would make a lot of sense.

As far as waste went, remembering the Ark was three stories, my guess is that the bottom level was used for waste and ballast, the same as now. Animal areas which could be washed or brushed into a drainage 'slot' at one side or along the back of the enclosures would ease the problem significantly.

My concern was always exercise. But looking at the size of the Ark and the number of animals, it seems to me that there was plenty of room for some kind of very large enclosure where animals could move during the time of calm seas.

So those are my guesses. I would still imagine that the Noah family stayed pretty busy that year! I don't think their lounge chairs got a lot of use...

Please, please remember I am only giving you, in my guessing part, guesses! They make sense to me, but that doesn't mean that is how it was done. That just means that is how I would think of doing it at first.

It would be really neat to find out, though, wouldn't it? I really, really want a front row seat in heaven when they play the video... (please don't take that as theology, anyone!)

 

I agree and I disagree, AITB. I agree that God tells us what we NEED to know; but I disagree that we cannot be curious and search out other things ourselves. What I have found is that as I have searched in the areas I am interested in, I keep finding God has been there first, and that every bit of true knowledge and science agrees with the Bible! By "true" I am not saying that it is true BECAUSE it agrees with the Bible, although that is certainly a reasonable argument. But I am referring to true in a more worldly, scientific sense, of being able to verify something that has been hypothesized or found. So it gets exciting to a lot of people to dig, because after awhile you know part of what you are going to find ahead of time: God's fingerprints all over something!

Because the Flood and Noah are held up to such ridicule by unbelievers (and even by a number of those who claim to be Christian!), I don't think it is a bad thing to search out what we can, apply the knowledge we have, and see what we can come up with. We all know that the actual full truth is, at this point, buried in history, but I think as we learn more and more, we can come a little closer to it and our guesses get a little more accurate. That's just my opinion, but then I've always been the curious sort!

To Glen: John Woodmorappe wrote a book entitled "Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study", the first chapters of which I recommend highly. But he quickly, I'm afraid, goes into pure speculation, some of which disagrees point blank with the Bible from what I can see! So I cautiously recommend the book for the first chapters because they truly are excellent, and with a strong warning regarding the latter chapters. I think you will see the difference very clearly when you read the book. ICR has it.

And yes, Morris' "Genesis Record" is also very good. Don't be afraid to disagree with any human being, however, on the basis of your own knowledge of the Bible and your own knowledge, period. None of us is God -- only God is God! Only God, at this point, knows the full entire truth of all of this. That is why I personally feel we have to not only take Genesis at its word, but also measure the rest of our knowledge and findings against it, as well as a against the rest of the Bible, to find out how close to or far from the mark we are.

 

Glen, I know HOW the local flood theory came about, but I don’t know who started it.

It has its roots in two points:
1. Above the Precambrian/Cambrian boundary there really is no uniform worldwide layering, leading many to doubt the extent of any flood.
2. If the Flood is true, evolution cannot be true; thus they fight.
3. I will add that there is also evidence of extensive flooding in the Middle East and this is taken to be “Noah’s Flood” evidence.

AITB, You are not offending anyone! I understand your comment and it needs a response. First of all I agree with you that the basic Bible message of salvation is “Jesus Saves.” Period.

But then the question must be asked, “Who is this Jesus? Where can I learn more about Him?” And that leads to the Bible, right?

Now, if God cannot get the beginning of the story right, why should anyone trust any of the rest? The basis for every major doctrine in the Bible starts in the first books of Genesis, and the reasons are also there.

If Genesis is allegorical or mythological, why not consider salvation and the Resurrection the same? All three are equally unlikely, mathematically and even logically! Nevertheless…

Christ Jesus Himself made reference to the first books of Genesis at least ten times in the four Gospels. His references were always as though Genesis was telling the historic truth. In the entire New Testament, the first eleven chapters of Genesis are referred to via one incident or another, over seventy times.

Now, did Jesus and these writers know what they were talking about or not? That really is important if a person is going to accept Christ as Lord and Savior! He is the creator of all, so wouldn’t He know if Genesis was allegorical?

The Gospel is that we were saved by God Himself – Jesus Christ – creator AND redeemer. To rob Him of the creation is to truncate His identity, and if you turn to Revelation and the hymns of praise which occur throughout, you will find that the first is over the fact of creation itself. How can we ignore so foundational a fact concerning His identity?

However, all that being said, I totally agree with your closing remark:
But some Christians tend to make so much of issues arising from Genesis that I'm sure the gospel comes across that way, at times...

It is our place, as Christians, to answer questions, not drive people away. But, the flip side of that is that when others ask about these controversial subjects in Genesis, we really do need to be ready to answer and not toss off something such as, “Well, that doesn’t really matter, what matters is Jesus.” Or something like that. If people are asking questions, Christians have a mandate in the Bible to be ready to answer. So that is where the question comes in, not as a matter of hitting people over the head with it, and with that I agree with you totally.

I also agree with you that God reveals, especially in the Bible, all we NEED to know. But He did create us curious beings for a purpose, I think!

As soon as I’m finished with this, I do plan to follow the link and see what your pastor is teaching. I still have so much to learn!

Me2, Thank you for the encouragement! I do like the way you mentioned the way the story of Noah would affect different age groups differently. That is another thing I had not thought of before! Hey, I NEED you folks here! Ummmm, AITB, hear that???

Now, about was the flood preplanned.

Yes, I believe it was, and I believe that holds up both scientifically and theologically (reverse order of importance there…)
Theologically, we see in Revelation 13:8 that Christ was the Lamb slain from the foundation/creation of the world. So before sin, God knew. And if the crucifixion was known, planned, decided upon before Adam and Eve were even created, then yes, God also set up the earth so that the Flood would be inevitable at the proper time.

Yes, the wickedness of man was the reason for the Flood. But God was not surprised; He had known all along what would happen. My own personal feeling regarding the EFFECT of the Flood was that it was not to erase that wickedness, but to expose man to whatever radiation or other thing which caused his biology to change to such an extent that his age expectancy went down so drastically. This is the one effect I can see the Flood as having, physically, on the survivors. And a shorter age gives man only enough time to come to a conclusion regarding Christ, have children, share his conclusion, and die. No more time for evil to flourish and grow in each person for hundreds of years.

And yes, I do agree with you that God definitely wants us to focus on the impossibility of any man anywhere saving himself without God! That would run along the same lines as teaching a drowning man to swim!

 

Glen, I belong to CRSnet, a young earth creation listserve. Also on it is someone who seems to be a walking, or at least typing, encyclopedia. I posted your question about the local flood there and got this back from my friend-the-encyclopedia:

The first record I can find as an advocate of the local-flood view was a
Frenchman, Isaac de la Peyrere, author of "Prae-Adamitae" in 1655. Far more
influential were Isaac Vossius, "Dissertatio de vera actate mundi" in 1659
and George Kaspar Kirchmaier, "De diluvii universalitate dissertatio
prolusoria" in 1667. These continental works produced the flood geology
reaction of Thomas Burnet, John Woodward, and William Whiston.
But Vossius and Kirchmaier succeeded in gaining two disciples in Great
Britain: Matthew Poole, "Latin Synopsis of Critical Writers upon the Bible"
in 1670 and Bishop Stillingfleet, "Origines Sacrae" in 1709.
Two other continentals of the local-flood persuasion were an Italian
named Quirini (1676), and Dathe, in 1791. As far as Great Britian was
concerned, the local-flood view never really took root. It was only
mentioned in passing by Poole and Stillingfleet and then disappeared for
over a century until the publication of John Pye Smith's work in 1839.
Hope this helps answer a part of your questions.

===============

I'm including the following as an 'edit' because I don't want to keep looking at my face on a bunch of different posts! This one just came in from another fellow on CRSnet, and adds a little bit from a more recent point of view:

What comes to my mind is a statement in the book GENESIS & GEOLOGY by Charles Coulston Gillispie (Cambridge Press, 1951) pages 128-129:

"Lyell was, of course, perfectly aware that the flood was his chief enemy, because to many minds the diluvial theory alone seemed capable of affording an explanation of natural phenomena in accordance with scriptural history. And being chary of disturbing religious convictions unduly, he impugned the deluge explicitly in only one passage, and that one rather in the nature of a digression. Generally, he preferred the [begin page 129] method of draining the flood of its influence incidentally to the development of his larger interpretation. And where he does allude to the flood, what he objects to is its universality and its geological efficacy, not its existence.

[Here begins a quote from Principles of Geology, III, page 270]

[begin again Gillispie]

That is to say, a lake like Titicaca, far above sea level, might burst its banks and flood the neighboring lowlands, or a very depressed land area, like the Valley Jordan, might be inundated by a break in the barriers surrounding it. Such, Lyell implies, was the Mosaic deluge. he admitted it to be undeniable, however, that recent naturalists had followed Buckland almost to a man in picturing the flood as violent, universal, and a primary geological agency. " [end quote from Gillispie's book].


Thus the ultimate answer of who started the idea of a local flood is left unanswered, but it was before Lyell's time and seems to be before geological data was even evaluated in that regard. [Blame it on early theologians??!!] But in attempting to answer the question of the Flood and its relationship to the fossil record, by Lyell's time [and probably even before] it was very tempting to make the Flood only a local event.


[ June 14, 2002, 11:13 PM: Message edited by: Helen ]

 

AITB, I think it would be very good for readers to see the different points of view where these matters are concerned. I am not the boss here, honest! Well, only sort of.... But I most certainly do NOT have a corner on all God's truth, so you are welcome to present a point of view different from mine. In fact, please do. We can keep the debate part out of it and let people read the Bible themselves and pray for understanding and know the Holy Spirit will lead us all away from what I am sure are our multitude of errors in different areas and toward the one full truth -- which we will probably only be able to see in full in heaven, but, like I said, I'm the curious sort!