Genesis and the Necessity of the Flood

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41

This is very bizarre. The beliefs the ancient hebrews happened to hold at the time with regards to cosmology are only particularly relevant if you deny the divine inspiration of Scripture. The Scripture does not teach a disc or any kind of flat earth, but neither does it forbid a person from holding that view if they are pre-scientific.

To claim there’s no substantial difference between referring to the planet Earth as a whole, and alien planets, is again just very bizarre and totally unwarranted. Even if the ancient hebrews didn’t have a conception of the earth as a globe (and that’s hard to know for sure because they didn’t have the degree of scientific sophistication in their language that we now possess), they certainly would have no problem differentiating the idea of this earth from other alien planets.

42

Earth is one separate continuous unit of land that is entirely discontinuous with other planets. What you’re saying here doesn’t even make the slightest bit of sense.

43

I don’t see how that follows. Surely the beliefs of the human authors of Scripture are relevant to help us interpret it properly.

My point is that even as there’s a substantial difference between the globe of the Earth and the entire solar system, there is also a substantial difference between the globe of the Earth and “the land” (eretz). If you’re willing to extend the meaning of eretz to also encompass the former (based on our current knowledge that we live on a globe, not just a flat disc), a slippery slope is opened to extend that hermeneutical move such that eretz can mean the whole solar system, galaxy, or even universe.

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44

Not if you are referring to beliefs outside Scripture; the doctrine of inspiration does not entail that all the personal beliefs of the biblical authors were inspired and inerrant. Only the text of Scripture is inerrant. Furthermore, God is not limited by the knowledge of the human author in the range of possible meanings He can choose to inspire in the text.

This is a false analogy. “The Land” (of Israel) is just a small part of a greater whole, which is the Land (Eretz) that God originally created in Genesis 1. Nowhere in the Bible is it stated or implied that Israel is “all there is”. A universal deluge of water would necessarily have to include more than just Israel. Israel is not located in a giant basin, so that means there’s no way that a local flood could have covered all the highest mountains in that region.

Obviously no amount of water could ever cause a flood on Earth to extend to any other planet, and the idea of intelligent biological life existing on other planets is unbiblical to begin with.

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I’m not referring to beliefs outside of Scripture. I’m referring to beliefs that are in Scripture, because we’re talking about the cosmology/geography that is assumed in the text of Scripture. Knowledge about the cultural and geographical context of a passage in Scripture is important to understand what it is trying to teach us. Now, while it is strictly true that as you said

you have to be careful with the above principle because you might end up with eisegesis and anachronisms. For example, if we want to know what Paul meant by the phrase “πάντας ἀνθρώπους” (Rom. 5:18), we can look at other writings of Paul where he used the same words to help illuminate the meaning in that specific passage. If that’s not enough, we can also look at the ways the word is used in non-Pauline passages, or even extra-Scriptural Koine passages.

Now, it’s possible in principle that the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to use “πάντας ἀνθρώπους” in a completely different, unique way in Romans 5:18 compared to any other Pauline passage, but such an interpretation would require a very strong supporting argument. Otherwise anyone can argue for any interpretation of a passage on the flimsiest of grounds by claiming that God was simply inspiring the author to use words in a way that he was completely unaware of, which opens the door to all sorts of allegorical and mystical interpretations.

I agree. But even if it includes more than just Israel, we don’t know if it literally covered the whole globe. The flood only needed to be large enough to cause everyone living in Noah’s region to perish - everyone he knew and was aware of. To argue that it must cover the whole globe requires an extra hermeneutical step that is only considered because we now have evidence that we live on a globe and there are people all over it.

Do you agree with me that there is nothing in Genesis 1-2 that explicitly indicates “the land” that God created referred to the whole globe as we understand it today? (We also haven’t talked about break between the two creation accounts, which may also imply a shift in the word “land”.)

What do you mean by “unbiblical”? If evidence for such life were to be found, would you view that as undermining that inerrancy of Scripture?

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46

But, clearly you are referring to beliefs outside of Scripture when you say, “cultural context”. Is the culture of ancient Israel divinely inspired also? Don’t get me wrong, sometimes some cultural information may be helpful in understanding certain passages of Scripture that would be otherwise unclear or confusing. However, if the Bible is clear on its own merits, it is not valid to claim that you have special “cultural understanding” that justifies your overthrowing that otherwise clear meaning.

The key is to use the bedrock hermeneutical principle of Scripture interprets Scripture. When we take the Scripture as a unified whole, and not a loose collection of disjointed parts, we find a much clearer picture emerges.

I don’t agree. The language is sufficiently clear that it does not mean “everybody Noah knew of”. Once again, the knowledge Noah himself happened to possess is not relevant here.

No. The text is clear that the Flood was universal in scope with regards to everything and everybody that God created. You don’t need to understand the shape of the earth to understand the concept of a universal Flood.

What was Noah’s region, in your estimation?

No, I don’t agree. Genesis 1-2 means “all of Earth”, regardless of whether you understand that Earth is round. Just as the Flood was universal, so was God’s creation!

I’ll put it this way. For biblical theological reasons, I find it exceedingly unlikely that any intelligent biological life exists on other planets in this universe. I would be extremely skeptical of anybody claiming to possess such evidence.

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No, of course not in the special sense that the text of Scripture is.* But unlike Muslims and the Quran, we don’t think that Holy Spirit dictated the text of Scripture. Instead, we believe in dual authorship - meaning that the Holy Spirit used the specific circumstances, knowledge, and literary skill of the human author to express what He wanted to teach in the text to the church for all time. Connecting the two - the specific circumstances of special revelation and its universal application, especially in today’s context - is the task for the biblical and systematic theologian, which is not always straightforward.

*That being said, it does seem remarkable that God chose to author the text of Scripture (at least the majority of the Old Testament) within the cultural context of Israel and not another nation. Not all elements of Israel’s culture are “divinely inspired” - for example, their tendency towards idolatry is probably not. Still, some cultural elements which are connected to God’s special revelation to them could be objectively special in some way. (Although perhaps God did deliberately choose to reveal Himself to a nation which tends to rebel against Him to illustrate His mercy and grace).

I personally don’t think the text is very clear on its own merits, for various reasons. Perhaps you happen to find it clear, but I don’t, especially when one realizes how different the cosmology assumed in the text is compared to what is commonly assumed today (one of the things being that we know now that the earth is a globe). And it seems that I’m not the only person who sees it this way.

OK, so how would you define the terms “universal flood” and “Earth”? (This is not a rhetorical question, btw. Just curious to explore how you understand it.)

Let’s imagine a scenario where we have strong evidence that such aliens existed - for example that such aliens encountered humans in spaceflight and there is ample video evidence of it. Would that undermine inerrancy of Scripture?

48

Ok, pls tell me why you think Noah warned the people in South America, India, china etc.

No, Jesus point was that the people who heard Noah’s preaching ignored his warning.
The global part cannot be found in the text here.
In fact, it supports a local flood as it would have been impossible for Noah to preach to people outside a limited region in the middle east… They didn’t have the internet or fast modes of travel then. The bible doesn’t mention God transporting Noah all over the world either.

49

Those landforms did not exist before the Flood. And since the waters of the Flood didn’t somehow “go away” (the continents rose up), that means the pre-Flood world was much less watery than ours today, and was likely just a single continent.

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Would be a huge single continent. It would be impossible for everyone to hear Noah even if the whole world was a single continent.
I live in india.Its a big country. If I start preaching from my hometown, there will be a lot of people from other states who will never hear me or even of me.
Are you being serious?

51

That does not entail what you seem to be implying it does here. Just because God used human authors in no way implies that the non-Scriptural beliefs (including culture) of those authors are in any way rendered inerrant.

They may be special in some way, but that doesn’t mean that their cultural beliefs were in any sense on par with Scripture, whatever they might have been in ancient times.

That is unfortunate. Why do you think God would bother to give us Scripture that doesn’t even manage to be clear on the big issues like what we’re discussing here? I think that’s a major problem for your view.

There is no cosmology assumed in the text. The text is deliberately vague in its cosmology because apparently God wanted us to figure out things like the shape of the earth for ourselves. The bible neither teaches nor implies a flat earth. That’s why conservative Christians for centuries have had no problem accepting what operational science tells us about the earth’s shape.

How do you define Noah’s region? That’s an important question you ignored.

Earth is defined as this singular landmass we’re on right now that supports all the life we see around us, and holds the water of the oceans. Universal means all of that landmass, and all the life on it was affected.

We don’t need to imagine that scenario, because that’s the one we already find ourselves in.

52

You are ignoring the lexicography fact that HAR can refer to basically any elevation, which explains why some modern translation translate it as hill rather than mountain.

Also, ICR, CMI, and AIG have all claimed that Noah’s flood built most of the mountain ranges we observe today. So that means, logically speaking, that the elevations were much lower during the early days of the flood but gradually got built during the year of the flood–and that contradict your claims. I’m not assuming that your views must harmonize with those of the aforementioned YEC ministries. I’m simply pointing out the conflict. (This claim that Noah’s Flood built the world’s mountain ranges and highest peaks is not hard to find on Young Earth Creationist websites. In fact, to confirm that this is still the case, I just now did a quick Google search and found all of the major ministry websites represented in the hits.)

(1) Israel is located right next to a basin which could certainly experience higher water levels, aka Mediterranean Sea. And I thought global flood proponents claim that massive amounts of water came from subterranean sources, melted glaciers and ice caps, and even the atmosphere.

(2) More importantly, the Bible never claims nor are any of us claiming that Israel was flooded in the Noahic Flood. Indeed, we don’t know where Noah lived nor even where the ark landed. (We don’t know if the region the Bible calls “the hill country of Ararat” was around or near the Mt. Ararat of Turkey, which got its name during the Middle Ages.)

(3) Repeating an aforementioned point, all of the major YEC ministries claim that the world’s high mountains were built by Noah’s Flood, so the flood waters exceeding “the highest hills” is not difficult to imagine.

Yes, I’ve known quite a few Young Earth Creationist who hold to the Dictation Theory of scripture inspiration. Of course, I wasn’t particularly surprised when they were uninterested in lexicography or any hermeneutic which included the study of cultural, historical, and linguistic context. Anything goes in terms of their hermeneutics—because God could impose any meaning upon the text that he dictated.

If there were no Adamic descendants in the land known as Palestine, there is no reason to assume that a “universal flood” destroyed that ERETZ. You’ve yet to provide any scriptural evidence for a global flood.

I too want to know how you define “unbiblical.” What is your scripture evidence that there cannot be “intelligent biological life” on other planets—and how do you define “intelligent” in this context? Couldn’t the fallen angels which you claimed were biologically alive and intelligent enough to produce the NEPHILIM also reside on other planets without the Bible mentioning that? If the Bible doesn’t deny it, would it still be “unbiblical”? (Just wondering.)

How do you define “clear” in this context? Does it mean obvious? Unambiguous? Not subject to different plausible interpretations? Whatever your answer to those questions, how did you make that determination? Why should we assume your hermeneutics correct and all others incorrect?

Moreover, anybody who has ever taken a grad course on the Book of Revelation can attest that it is not necessarily “clear on its merits.” I can say the same on a lot of other passages. (Sometimes I’m not even sure what is the best manuscript reading for a particular passage of the Bible.)

Where does the Bible make this claim? And if that is true, how do explain the instances when various scriptures remained baffling until various linguistic, cultural, or historical discoveries outside of the Bible were published?

If “the language is sufficiently clear”, how do you explain the fact that so many born-again, Bible-affirming, Christ-following Hebrew scholars disagree with you? And should I assume from this that you are fluent in Classical Hebrew to the degree that you have determined that the Hebrew text is “clear” on these points? Or are you simply assuming what others have told you about the Hebrew text?

Apples and oranges. I still don’t see how you’ve made that determination. You’ve yet to provide a scripture which demands a global flood interpretation. So far you are simply arguing for your favorite traditions.

If the continents rose up that quickly, how did the absolutely MASSIVE heat production of such geologic forces not boil away all of the water on the planet? Even the R.A.T.E. Project did the math and concurred that this is a massive problem for their position.

What is your scriptural and/scientific evidence that the pre-Flood world was “less watery”? And are you implying that God created more water at the time of the flood so that the entire planet could covered in water universally to a depth of about five miles so that even Mt. Everest could be covered? (I’m just wondering how your position compares to that of traditional YECism.)

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53

I’m not arguing that cultural elements are on par with Scripture. If you did, then you have misunderstood me.

I don’t think whether Noah’s flood is global or local is a “big issue” that has major consequences for understanding the universality and seriousness of sin and God’s plan of redemption which culminates in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Both you and I affirm the latter even as we disagree on the former. The extent of Noah’s flood is not even a secondary issue like election and predestination. Rather it’s a tertiary issue. It does arise from a disagreement about what Scripture teaches, but a disagreement about Scripture doesn’t automatically elevate an issue to become primary or even secondary.

These two sentences seem to contradict each other. Is the cosmology non-existent, or vague?

OK, but is that clearly the only interpretation that is possible from the text? First, who is “us”? The meaning of that term changes when we’re talking about the original audience of Scripture versus every possible human reader of Scripture living anywhere on the planet Earth (or beyond it). Second, how do we know from the text that eretz includes separated landmasses like the Americas, Australia, and Polynesia? Finally, the concept of “oceans” already presumes an understanding of Earth as a spherical planet where all the waters are continuous with each other.

No, I’m thinking of something more extensive than just a few isolated examples which only a few people claimed to have witnessed. I’m thinking of a scenario where aliens land in a spacecraft outside of the White House and greet the US President while the cameras are rolling. These aliens then establish an embassy on Earth that anyone can visit to take a look for themselves. That sort of thing. Would that undermine the inerrancy of Scripture?

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54

Whao. what? Pangea broke up several of hundred million years ago long before anything like humans existed.

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55

I don’t think the Bible itself agrees with your assessment. Is it a salvation issue? No, you can be saved without believing in a global flood. Nonetheless, it’s a matter of extreme importance, for many reasons. For one thing, if the Bible’s history cannot be trusted or isn’t clear, then we have a shaky foundation on which to build the Gospel. Jesus affirmed that the OT was from God and is inerrant. The whole Bible is centered around God’s actions in history, and you’re stating that God hasn’t made those actions clear. I say he has.

Second, this is a matter of properly handling the Scriptures and understanding their right place of authority above what men say. Ever since the Enlightenment, there has been a progressive push away from God’s revelation and towards the ideas of mankind thinking apart from the Bible. Ever since then, there has been a cultural pressure for Christians to compromise what the Bible says with what the secular world is saying. It is in that context that we primarily see these new liberal views of a local flood, “evolutionary creationism” and so on start to spring up and gain popularity. I’m not saying there were never any people teaching these wrong doctrines before, but the pressure to do so is now severely amped up.

It is perhaps for this reason that Peter was inspired to warn us beforehand about these “scoffers” that would come in the last days and deny, based on uniformitarian thinking, these three critical doctrines: creation, the global Flood, and the 2nd coming. (2 Peter 3). Yes, of course there are some people that don’t deny all three at once, but Peter was clear that these three doctrines would be the object of widespread scoffing in the last days, and this prophecy is certainly fulfilled.

Look closer: I said the text on this point is vague, and as a result the cosmology is nonexistent. I don’t believe the Bible teaches any kind of cosmology, but instead uses generally anthropocentric language to describe the world and cosmos in a way that is completely accurate, but not intended to create a clear scientific cosmology.

Humanity: the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, the first two people.

No it doesn’t. There’s only one human race.

At the time of the events in Genesis 1 up through the Flood I don’t believe there were separated landmasses at all. I think the world existed as one landmass that was catastrophically broken up by the processes of the Flood. In any case, Genesis 1 is clearly universal regardless. “Heavens and earth” is a Hebrew merism meaning “all that exists”.

I don’t see the connection here. Oceans can only be continuous on a sphere?

I would still suspect some kind of deception was going on, but I understand you mean to assert that there is no deception and they are real biological aliens. Would this cause me to abandon my belief in the Bible? No, in this hypothetical scenario I would have to assume I was wrong in what I thought the text implied. The Bible nowhere states “there are no aliens”, but I do believe the Scriptural reasons to disbelieve in them are strong.

And I ask again a third time: what was Noah’s region?

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This is a good example of 2+2=7 and the Slippery Slope fallacy.

Whether or not God has revealed as much detail about history as you or I might prefer is immaterial to our salvation and to the essence of the Gospel.

And inerrancy has nothing to do with how detailed the Bible may or may not be about questions which may be important to someone now (e.g., the exact extent of the Noahic Flood) but not at all central to the purpose of Genesis 6 to 9.

This reminds me of Ken Ham’s favorite cartoon which pretends that Genesis is the foundation of the Gospel instead of Jesus Christ.

And that includes what men may say about the scriptures—and details which simply aren’t there.

This is called the Poisoning the Well fallacy.

This was a popular theme of The Genesis Flood (1962, Henry Morris & John Whitcomb Jr.) I knew John Whitcomb and he never did understand what uniformitarianism in science actually is—despite many people trying to explain it to him. That disinformation remains popular to this day in “creation science” circles.

And how could such an event take place without releasing so much heat that all of the water on earth was boiled away?

I don’t know and you don’t know because the Bible doesn’t tell us. The text only tells us that it was the ERETZ where Noah lived.

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57

It would certainly be relevant given historical grammatical hermeneutics. How do you define the meaning of a Hebrew phrase apart from Hebrew understanding? Is there some sort of thesaurus the Hebrews did not have access to?

If the person writing the text did not know the meaning of what he was writing, how are you supposed to know?

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The Table of Nations in Gen 10 is a good start.

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I’m not talking about the definitions of words, I’m talking about the exegesis of the text.

I didn’t claim the author didn’t know the meaning, I said the text was deliberately vague when it comes to cosmology. It was not God’s purpose to reveal a scientific understanding of cosmology in the Bible. However, the meaning is determined not by what the author knew, but by what the author wrote, and how it fit into the overall context of the rest of Scripture. Supernatural inspiration certainly entails the possibility that writers wrote down things they didn’t fully understand themselves.

60

For after the flood, I certainly agree. But the text doesn’t tell us where Noah was living before the flood.

I had a fellow a while back tell me that Noah originally lived on the coast of Central America because only the El Nino could explain the 40 days of rain.

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