As we began our series in Genesis I said that I was going to concentrate the Sunday morning messages on the historical narrative focusing on the worldview that Genesis establishes for the believer.
That being said, we will be submitting material to the blog that deals with (what we would see as) secondary issues and questions that are commonly raised about the accounts of Genesis.
In this post I want to share with you twelve reasons why I believe in a world wide flood. There are probably more that one could come up with but twelve should suffice.
- Historical evidence- virtually every culture has a flood tradition.
- Geological evidence- fossils are millions of dead things, incased in rock, laid down by water all over the face of the earth. Marine life fossils are found in some of the highest mountain ranges in the world.
- Many geologist now believe that the earth’s present topography is best explained not by gradualism, but suddenly through catastrophic events like floods. Why not go one step further and admit that one great catastrophic event like the Flood is really the best explanation?
- Could all the animals fit on the Ark? The Ark- 450/75/45. The volumetric capacity of the ark would have been approx. 1,400,000 cubic feet. This is equivalent to 522 standard livestock cars used on modern American railroads. 522 cars could hold 125,000 sheep. Only 11% of land animals are larger than a sheep. Since Noah took two of each kind (and seven of every clean animal) and didn’t need all the varieties with-in the kind, the total amount of animals on the ark could have been as low 16,000 and need be no more than about 40,000.
- Noah would not have been able to gather all the animals to the ark because many of them would have been in different parts of the world.
- The dry land was at that time one mass, and the period of time for the completion of the ark was over one hundred years.
- Many animals have a migration instinct and there’s no reason that God couldn’t have moved the animals in that way.
- Noah couldn’t have cared for that many animals for more than a year on the ark.
- Hibernation- God created many animals with the hibernation instinct and there’s no reason to believe that he couldn’t have extended that to all the animals on the ark during that time. - The wording of the text leads one to believe the flood was universal.
- The construction of the ark would be an utter waste of time and resources if the flood were but a local flood. Migration would have been a much better solution to the problem, for Noah, as well as the birds and beast.
- All flesh died that moved upon the earth. In a local flood, most of the fauna can escape death by fleeing the rising waters or by swimming to dry ground if necessary (or by flying away, as in the case of the birds); but this would be impossible in a universal flood.
- God’s promise never to send such a flood again has been broken repeatedly if it were only a local or regional flood.
- The N.T. uses the unique term (kataklusmos, “cataclysm”) instead of the usual Greek word for flood.
- Later Biblical writers accepted the universal Flood- “The world that then was perished…”
- Jesus accepted the historicity and universality of the Flood, even making it the climactic sign and type of the coming worldwide judgment when He returns.
As I said, the debate of whether there was a local flood or a world wide flood is a secondary issue, the primary theme of scripture is to record for us God’s dealings with mankind and his salvation through Christ that he has faithfully wrought and offered to all. I do believe that there is some importance to believing in a world wide flood and my main reason for doing so is that I believe that the Bible clearly states it.
Being an uneducated man myself, I firmly believe that the Bible is written not for the scholar, or the philosopher, not for the elite with higher education. I believe that God’s word was written for the common man, that all may hear and understand. We should be able to read the bible literally when it speaks literally, and poetically when it speaks poetically and metaphorically when it speaks metaphorically.
That being said, we should be able to read most passages (not all, see Deuteronomy 29:29) of scripture under the inspiration of the Spirit and understand what is being taught, without having a PHD or a THD.
I’ll end with this, Paul said, “I commend you to God and the word of His grace that is able to build you up and give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.”
Amen.
Vaya con Dios!