The Great Flood: Genesis Chapters 6 through 9

Aside from popular opinion and the false impression left by Bible translators, the flood of Noah certainly did NOT cover the entire planet we call Earth. The same word translated as earth in these chapters is translated as land on at least a thousand other occasions in Scripture, which is easily verifiable by checking under "land" in a Strong's Concordance.

The relatively small size of Noah's ark, the highly localized distribution of many insect and animal species across the globe, the numbers of species known from the fossil record to have been diverse from one another and occupying specific locations long before Noah's flood, and many other facts from the animal world all show that Noah's flood must have been a local flood, having covered "the whole land" and not the whole earth.

Equally as convincing, are the effects of the pressure of 30,000 feet of water (assuming all the planet's mountains were covered) over 150 days, and how that would have easily destroyed all possible habitat and food supply for many decades, even centuries, leaving all of Noah's animals to starve to death, along with his own family. Never mind the effects on the world's fresh and salt-water oceans, on glaciers which would have by necessity been removed from their places, etc., all for which there is no convincing evidence. Indeed, upon close inspection and retrospection a belief that the entire planet was covered with water for such a length of time is not only implausible, it is absolutely ludicrous.

One common argument defeated: that there is not enough sediment in the world's oceans to support a the idea that they are very old. Why it is wrong: because the great pressure compresses sediment into the ocean floor, and near the shores sediment is constantly being washed out to sea.

Another common argument defeated: that the mollusks found in mountain ranges such as the Andes must be a residue from the flood of Noah. Why it is wrong: the fossils are much older than 6,000 years, and the planet has a long history. It is far more likely that mountains such as the Andes, where they are now due to long-term tectonic plate activity, were the home of seas long before the flood of Noah, and contain fossils for that reason.

Many other such arguments in favor of a world-wide flood in Noah's time (which is approximately 3245 BC according to the Septuagint Chronology and using Bishop Usher's method as he applied it to the King James Version) are also easily and soundly defeated.

Biblical evidence:

While genealogies were obviously quite important to the original writers of our Bibles, there are several tribes mentioned in Genesis which have no origination with the tribes of the Adamites who descended from Noah. These include the Perizzites of Genesis 13:7 and 15:20, et al., and the Kenizzites and Kadmonites of Genesis 15:20. Also in Genesis Chapter 15, verses 19-20, are the Kenites and the Rephaim. It can be established from Scripture that the Kenites are the descendants of Cain listed in Genesis Chapter 4, and the Rephaim are the descendants of the Genesis 6 giants (cf. 2 Samuel 21:16-22 and 1 Chronicles 20:4-8). Certainly none of the giants or the descendants of Cain were on the ark with Noah. Rather, the flood was to punish Adamic man, and not the giants (Genesis 6:7). The giants and Kenites survived because they were in a land other than the land of the flood. Their descendants are still with us today.

Links:

Noah's Flood Was Not Worldwide (Betrand Comparet)

Noah's Flood: Global or Local? (Donald Hochner and Richard Anthony)

Last Updated: 06/09/10 - Click here to go to the top of the page