If
the Genesis Flood, as described in Genesis 7 and 8, really occurred, what
evidence would we expect to find?
3.1 Evidence from the Black Sea
The 1990's that geologists
William Ryan and Walter Pitman gathered clues pointing to an actual ancient
flood in the Middle East about 7,500 years ago. Sediment core samples the scientists
took from the bottom of the Black Sea revealed sections of once dry, sun baked
land. These
sediments were then covered by sections of uniform mud, strongly suggesting
that these plains underwent a long ago influx of salt water. Though not worldwide,
this cataclysmic event occurred at what could have been a locus of human
activity at the time. In their 1998 book, Noah's Flood: The
New Scientific Discoveries about the Event that Changed History, Ryan and
Pitman suggest the Black Sea was once a much smaller, land locked freshwater
lake, fed by ancient rivers, and surrounded by fertile plains. Neolithic
people, Ryan and Pitman suppose, would have flocked to farm these Eden like
plains to farm them while supplementing their diets with the lake's abundant
shellfish. At this time about 7,500 years ago the global climate was still rapidly
warming following the last Ice Age, causing the seas to rise. Ryan and Pitman
hypothesize that, when sea levels rose beyond a critical point, the
Mediterranean Sea overflowed, deluging the Black Sea basin with salty water and
destroying the fertile plains around the once shallow freshwater lake. Any
people living on those plains at the time would have witnessed what must have
seemed like the wrath of an angry god. Based on the still northern flowing undercurrents
of what we call the Bosporus Straits, Ryan and Pitman estimate the water rushed
northward through this channel with force many times greater than Niagara
Falls. As the waters rose about six inches per day, human settlements would
have been washed away or under hundreds of feet of water within a year or so.
Traumatized refugees from the flood must have told their story to shocked
listeners. Inspired by Ryan and Pitman's work, Bob Ballard and an international
team of specialized scientists and engineers took a small fleet of ships and
remotely operated vehicles (ROV's) into the Black Sea seeking evidence of human
habitation before the flood.
3.1.1 An Ancient
Shoreline
In July of 1999,
Ballard and his colleagues began mapping the floor of the Black Sea, looking
for the once fertile plains. Going on Ryan and Pitman's estimates that sea levels
rose roughly 150 meters during the flood, Ballard and his colleagues searched for
what would have been the ancient coastline of the freshwater lake. Using sonar
and global positioning system (GPS) to navigate, Ballard swept his ship back
and forth through the target area, creating the first detailed profile of the
sea floor. As the ship's computer processed the sonar data, the images scrolled
across the ship's monitors. Precisely where Ryan and Pitman said it would be,
the sonar images revealed a broad flat plain spanning some 20 miles from the
present day coastline out to sea. Adjacent to this plain lies the ancient
lakebed. Farther out, a sand bar echoes the shape of the original shoreline. The
sonar imaging left little doubt the Black Sea had once been smaller. But there
were still more pieces of this puzzle to be found.
3.1.2 Water from Fresh
to Salty
On this same
expedition, the scientists dredged the bottom of the Black Sea, bringing up
among other things a variety of seashells. Though analysis of those seashells
would take some time, the results would turn out to be worth the wait. In
November 1999, Ballard announced the conclusions to the world. Ballard and his colleagues
had collected shells from nine separate species of mollusks, shell building
invertebrates such as snails and clams. Expert analysis by Gary Rosenberg of
the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia revealed that seven of the species
were saltwater mollusks, ranging up to 6,800 years old. The other two species,
however, were extinct freshwater species that might have lived between 7,460
and 15,500 years ago. These two species proved this body of water must have
been fresh until 7,460 years ago, providing more and incontrovertible evidence
of an influx of saltwater from the Mediterranean Sea
3.1.3. Noah's Home
Address
The ancient beach and
the mollusk shells left little doubt that the Mediterranean Sea had flooded the
Black Sea basin. But had people witnessed it? And how cataclysmic was the change?
"It's not clear how rapidly it happened," says Brendan Foley, a student
of Maritime Archeology at MIT's program for Science, Technology and Society.
“But, if the flooding happened quickly, then there's a possibility dwelling sites
were inundated and the sites would have been just covered with water and not
beaten up by waves." With that hope in mind, the expedition searched for
remains of human settlements in the fall of 2000. The garbage heaps and tools
they discovered were significant finds. But for Ballard, the Holy Grail was the
remnants of a dwelling what Ballard and the others only half jokingly
referred to as "Noah's House" the surest sign of human presence.
This time, Ballard and his colleagues sailed back and forth in 100meter deep
waters, over what would have been dry land before the flood, concentrating on channels
carved by the ancient rivers that fed the once freshwater lake. Archaeologists
familiar with the region suspect that the once dry land of river deltas would
have been attractive real estate for the farmers who may have lived here before
the flood.
Once again, Ballard's
team hit pay dirt Foley refers to what the team calls "Site 82," a
decidedly manmade structure submerged in 95 meters of water, nestled between
the beds of two rivers that once fed the ancient freshwater lake. The researchers
deployed the Rov called "Little Hercules" to obtain images of the
promising site. Stunned scientists stared at the ship's monitors as the Rov
sent back pictures of manmade wooden beams, ceramic shards and stone tools.
Disappointingly, radiocarbon dating proved the wood to be too young to have
been the actual walls and roof of "Noah's house." However, sediment samples
collected from the site revealed what may be a stone foundation similar to other
Neolithic dwellings found in the region. While scientists cannot say for
certain that Site 82 was a Neolithic dwelling before the flood, the tantalizing
possibility exists. Only further exploration will tell for sure.
During these voyages,
Ballard and his colleagues uncovered still other artifacts that reveal much
about other chapters of human history. Among these finds were four shipwrecks, almost
perfectly preserved in the cold, oxygen less waters at the bottom of the Black
Sea, where timbers would be safe from decomposing bacteria and wood boring
worms. Expedition member and nautical archeologist Cheryl Ward recalls her
first impressions of one of the wrecks. "There was no rope anywhere on the
ship, which to me was an indication that this was probably much older than a
couple of hundred years," says Ward. "Looking at the way that the
ship itself was laid out, I started to think that this probably was about the
same age as the other three shipwrecks that had been found, probably around
1500 years old." While 1500 years old is far from Biblical, little is
known about shipbuilding in the Black Sea during this period. Ward wants to know
which traditions these ships' builders were heir to local standards or older
Greek ones passed down through generations. Moreover, the ships' cargo could reveal
much about the people who sailed them. Were these ships full of goods to be
traded, were they passenger ferries, or warships? "We'd be able to find
all kinds of intimate details of the daily life of the people who were
operating this little vessel," says Ward. In addition to learning more
about the ancients, Ward also appreciates what these shipwrecks have to teach
us about ourselves. "One of the things that modern people like to do is to
think they're more sophisticated than people in the past," she says.
"But every time we excavate a ship, what is proven is that the people who lived
thousands of years ago were solving the same kind of problems and were just as
clever as we are." The Black Sea and its cold, oxygen poor depths
preserved evidence unlikely to have survived seven millennia anywhere else. The
faithful need no proof of Noah's Flood, and conclusive proof of a flood is not evidence
of God to the nonreligious. Though Ballard's expeditions have yet to prove that
Neolithic people witnessed the flooding of the Black Sea Basin 7,500 years ago,
the shipwrecks, the tools, garbage and other artifacts have much to tell us
about human history. Religious or not, we are all awed by the lives our ancient
ancestors might have lived.
3.2 Scriptural Evidence
The Garden of Eden must
have been a wonderful place to call home, a place with an ideal climate and
setting, where man apex of God’s creation, could live in a covenant relationship
with his Creator. The climate apparently was so mild that Adam and Eve were
able to inhabit the garden on a daily basis completely unclothed (Genesis
2:25). It was truly a paradise setting. How long, however, did such a climate
remain after man’s fall, or did it continue at all outside the Garden of Eden?
Several pieces of evidence, both scriptural and scientific, point to the fact
that indeed, the mild climate present in the Garden did continue, at least for
a while (and most likely even up to the time of the Flood). In all likelihood,
the antediluvian world was vastly different from the Earth of today. For
example, we know from clear statements of Scripture (e.g., Psalm 104:8) that
after the Flood, God caused the mountains to rise and the valleys to sink, evidently
indicating that the mountains of the antediluvian world were not nearly as high
as those of today. We also know from Scripture that on day two of Creation, God
“divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were
above the firmament” (Genesis 1:7). It is the view of some scientists that
there may have been a water “canopy” of some sort above the Earth (the same
canopy, they suggest, that later would shower rain on the Earth for 40 days and
40 nights (Genesis 7:17 and 8:6). What effect(s) would this canopy have on the
Earth’s climate if, in fact, it did exist?
The most immediate and
obvious of these effects would be to cause a uniformly warm temperate climate
around the earth. Such water vapor as is present in the atmosphere today has
this specific effect of regulating the earth’s temperature. The inferred
antediluvian vapor envelope would have produced this result in much greater
degree, with a larger percentage of the sun’s incoming radiant energy being
absorbed and retained and uniformly distributed over the earth than at present,
both seasonally and latitudinally. The constant battle of “fronts” would be
mostly absent, so that antediluvian climates were not only warm but also
without violent windstorms.
Interestingly,
even evolutionists speak conclusively of a universally mild climate
characterizing the Earth at one time. Speaking of the age of reptiles, for
example, E.H. Colbert said:
Many lines of dinosaurs
evolved during the 100 million years or more (according to the evolutionists’
timetable) of Mesozoic history in which they lived. In those days the earth had
a tropical or subtropical climate over much of its land surface, and in the
widespread tropical lands there was an abundance of lush vegetation. The land
was low and there were no high mountains forming physical or climatic barriers.
3.3 Necessity of the
Ship
Was an Ark really
necessary? All the time (more than 100 years), effort, and expense of building
this enormous ship was wasted if it were only a local flood. Noah and his
family, guiding a host of animals and other creatures, could have migrated to a
higher area and waited for a local flood to flow out into the ocean.
3.4 Measuring the Flood
Water
“One need not be a
professional scientist to realize the tremendous implications of these Biblical
statements. If only one (to say nothing of all) of the high mountains had been
covered with water, the Flood would have been absolutely universal; for water
must seek its own level and must do so quickly!”
Critics, however, have
been quick to point out that the phrase “all the high mountains” need not
necessarily mean all the high mountains, for the word “all” can be used in a
relative or distributive sense. A measure of the waters is now made by
comparison with the only available standard for such waters; the mountains.
They are said to have been “covered.” Not a few merely but “all the high
mountains under all the heavens.” One of these expressions alone would almost
necessitate the impression that the author intends to convey the idea of the
absolute universality of the Flood, e.g., “all the high mountains.” Yet since
“all” is known to be used in a relative sense, the writer removes all possible
ambiguity by adding the phrase “under all the heavens.” A double “all” (kol)
cannot allow for so relative a sense. It almost constitutes a Hebrew
superlative. So we believe that the text disposes of the question of the
universality of the Flood.
How deep, then, was this
water “over all the high mountains”? The text indicates it was “fifteen cubits
upward” that the water “prevailed.” This phrase obviously cannot mean that the
waters went only fifteen cubits high (approximately 22 1 2 feet), for the
phrase is qualified by the one that immediately follows—“and the mountains were
covered.” The true meaning of the phrase is to be found in comparing Genesis 7:
19-20 with Genesis 6:15, where it is stated that the ark was thirty cubits
high. The phrase “fifteen cubits” must then refer to the draught of the ark.
The draught of a boat such as the ark is generally half its height. That is,
when fully loaded, it sinks in the water to a depth equal to half the height.
If the ark was thirty cubits high, and sank half of that, it would sink fifteen
cubits. If the waters then prevailed upward “fifteen cubits,” that would be
adequate to protect the ark as it floated on the waters all over the Earth for
little more than a year. Therefore the ark would not hit any mountain tops
during its journey. Psalm 104:8 speaks of God “raising up new mountains” after
the Flood, it is likely that the mountains of Noah’s day were not nearly as high
as the mountains that today. It seems probable that such mountains were much
smaller than, say, such peaks as Mt. Everest or Mt. McKinley that are so well
known to us.
A careful reading of
the Genesis text indicates that the Flood lasted approximately a year.
The order of events as
set forth in the first part of the eighth chapter of Genesis would seem, then,
to be as follows: (1) after the waters had “prevailed upon the earth” 150 days,
the waters began to assuage. (2) The Ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat
the same day that the waters began to assuage, for the 17th day of the 7th
month was exactly 150 days after the Flood began. (3) The waters continued to
subside, so that by the 1st day of the 10th month (74 days later), the tops of
various lower mountains could be seen. This would suggest a drop of perhaps
fifteen or twenty feet a day, at least during the initial phase of this
assuaging period. (4) The Flood level continued to fall for forty more days, so
that Noah, no longer fearing that the Flood would return, sent forth a raven to
investigate the conditions outside the Ark.
3.5 High & Dry Sea
Creatures
It is beyond dispute
among geologists that on every continent we find fossils of sea creatures in
rock layers which today are high above sea level. For example, we find marine
fossils in most of the rock layers in Grand Canyon. This includes the topmost
layer in the sequence, the Kaibab Limestone exposed at the rim of the canyon,
which today is approximately 7,000–8,000 feet (2,130–2,440 m) above sea level. Marine
fossils are also found high in the Himalayas, the world’s tallest mountain
range, reaching up to 29,029 feet (8,848 m) above sea level. The best explanation
which we have of these sea creatures’ fossils appears above sea level that how
they reached there? It is only the consequence of the great Flood of Noah
because these rock layers in the Himalayas and other mountain ranges around the
globe were deposited during the Flood.
3.6 The World’s a
Graveyard
Rapid burial of plants
and animals: after noting in Genesis 7 that all the high hills and the
mountains were covered by water and all air-breathing life on the land was swept
away and perished, it should be obvious what evidence we would expect to find. Wouldn’t
we expect to find rock layers all over the earth filled with billions of dead
animals and plants that were buried rapidly and fossilized in sand, mud, and
lime? Of course, and that’s exactly what we find. Furthermore, even though the
catastrophic geologic activity of the Flood would have waned in the immediate
post-Flood period, ongoing mini-catastrophes would still have produced localized
fossil deposits. For example, billions of straight-shelled,
chambered nautilus are found fossilized with other marine creatures in a 7 foot
(2 m)
thick layer within the Red wall Limestone of Grand Canyon. This
fossil graveyard stretches for 180 miles (290 km) across northern Arizona and
into southern Nevada, covering an area of at least 10,500 square miles (30,000
km). These
squid-like fossils are all different sizes, from small, young nautilus to their
bigger, older relatives. To form such a vast fossil graveyard required 24 cubic
miles (100 km3) of lime sand and silt, flowing in a thick, soup-like
slurry at more than 16 feet (5 m) per second (more than 11 mph [18 km/h]) to
catastrophically overwhelm and bury this huge, living population of nautilus. Hundreds
of thousands of marine creatures were buried with amphibians, spiders,
scorpions, millipedes, insects, and reptiles in a fossil graveyard at
Montceau-les-Mines, France. More than 100,000 fossil specimens, representing
more than 400 species, have been recovered from a shale layer associated with
coal beds in the Mazon Creek area near Chicago. This
spectacular fossil graveyard includes ferns, insects, scorpions, and tetra pods
buried with jellyfish, mollusks, crustaceans, and fish, often with soft parts
exquisitely preserved. Notice in many of these examples how marine and
land-dwelling creatures are found buried together. How could this have happened
unless the ocean waters rose and swept over the continents in a global,
catastrophic Flood?
3.6.1 Exquisite
Preservation
Such was the speed at
which many creatures were buried and fossilized—under catastrophic flood
conditions that they were exquisitely preserved. Many fish were buried so
rapidly, virtually alive, those even fine details of fins and eye sockets have
been preserved. Many trilobites have been so exquisitely preserved that even
the compound lens systems in their eyes are still available for detailed study.
3.7 Transcontinental Rock Layers
On every continent are
found layers of sedimentary rocks over vast areas. Many of these sediment
layers can be traced all the way across continents, and even between
continents. Furthermore, when geologists look closely at these rocks, they find
evidence that the sediments were deposited rapidly. Consider the sedimentary
rock layers exposed in the walls of the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona. This
sequence of layers is not unique to that region of the USA. For more than 50
years geologists have recognized that these strata belong to six mega sequences
(very thick, distinctive sequences of sedimentary rock layers) that can be
traced right across North America. The lowermost sedimentary layers in Grand
Canyon are the Tapeats Sandstone, belonging to the Sauk Mega sequence. It and
its equivalents (those layers comprised of the same materials) cover much of
the United State of America. We can hardly imagine what forces were necessary
to deposit such a vast, continent- wide series of deposits. Yet at the base of this
sequence are huge boulders and sand beds deposited by storms. Both are evidence
that massive forces deposited these sediment layers rapidly and violently right
across the entire United State of America. Slow-and-gradual (present-day
uniformitarian) processes cannot account for this evidence, but the global
catastrophic Genesis Flood surely can. Another layer in Grand Canyon is the
Lower Carboniferous (Mississippian) Red wall Limestone. This belongs to the
Kaskaskia Mega sequence of North America. So the same limes tones appear in
many places across North America, as far as Tennessee and Pennsylvania. These
limes tones also appear in the exact same position in the strata sequences, and
they have the exact same fossils and other features in them. Unfortunately,
these lime stones have been given different names in other locations because
the geologists saw only what they were working on locally and didn’t realize
that other geologists were studying essentially the same limestone beds in
other places. Even more remarkable, the same Carboniferous limestone beds also
appear thousands of miles east in England, containing the same fossils and
other features. The buff-colored Coconino Sandstone is very distinctive in the
walls of Grand Canyon. It has an average thickness of 315 feet (96 m) and
covers an area of at least 200,000 square miles (518,000 km2) eastward across
adjoining states.
So the volume of sand in the Coconino Sandstone layer is at least 10,000 cubic
miles (41,682 km3). This layer also contains physical features called cross
beds. While the overall layer of sandstone is horizontal, these cross beds are
clearly visible as sloped beds. These beds are remnants of the sand waves
produced by the water currents that deposited the sand (like sand dunes, but
underwater). So it can be demonstrated that water, flowing at 3–5 miles per
hour (4.8–8 km/h), deposited the Coconino Sandstone as massive sheets of sand,
with sand waves up to 60 feet (18 m) high.
At this rate, the whole Coconino Sandstone layer (all 10,000 cubic miles
of sand) would have been deposited in just a few days! Sediment layers that
spread across vast continents are evidence that water covered the continents in
the past. Even more dramatic are the fossil-bearing sediment layers that were
deposited rapidly right across many or most of the continents at the same time.
To catastrophically deposit such extensive sediment layers implies global
flooding of the continents.
3.8 Sand Transported
Cross Country
Now it logically
follows that, when the Flood waters swept over the continents and rapidly
deposited sediment layers across vast areas, these sediments had to have been
transported long distances. In other words, the sediments in the strata had to
come from distant sources. And that’s exactly the evidence we find. The
Coconino Sandstone, seen spectacularly in the walls of the Grand Canyon and it
has an average thickness of 315 feet (96 m), covers an area of at least 200,000
square miles (518,000 km 2), and thus contains at least 10,000 cubic miles
(41,700 km 3) of sand. Where did this sand come from, and how do we know? The
sand grains are pure quartz (a natural glass mineral), which is why the
Coconino Sandstone is such a distinctive buff color. Directly underneath it is
the strikingly different red-brown Hermit Formation, consisting of siltstone
and shale. Sand for the Coconino Sandstone could not have come from the
underlying Hermit Formation. The sloping remnants of sand
“waves” in the Coconino Sandstone point to the south, indicating the water that
deposited the sand flowed from the north.
Another clue is that the Coconino Sandstone thins to zero to the north in Utah,
but the Hermit Formation spreads farther into Utah and beyond. So the
Coconino’s pure quartz sand had to come from a source even farther north, above
and beyond the red-brown Hermit. Within this sandstone,
we find grains of the mineral zircon, which is relatively easy to trace to its
source because zircon usually contains radioactive uranium. By “dating” these zircon
grains, using the uranium, lead (U-Pb) radioactive method, it has been postulated
that the sand grains in the Navajo Sandstone came from the Appalachians of
Pennsylvania and New York, and from former mountains further north in Canada.
If this is true, the sand grains were transported at least 1,800 miles (3000
km) right across North America. Yet
the evidence is overwhelming that the water was flowing in one direction. More
than half a million measurements have been collected from 15,615 North American
localities, recording water current direction indicators throughout the
geologic record. The evidence indicates that water moved sediments across the
entire continent, from the east and northeast to the west and southwest throughout
the so-called Paleozoic. This general pattern continued on up
into the Mesozoic, when the Navajo Sandstone was deposited. How could water be
flowing across the North American continent consistently for hundreds of
millions of years? Absolutely impossible! The only logical and viable
explanation is the global cataclysmic Genesis Flood. Only the water currents of
a global ocean, lasting a few months, could have transported such huge volumes
of sediments right across the North American continent to deposit the thick strata
sequences which blanket the continent.
3.9 No Slow and Gradual
Erosion
The dominant view today
is that slow and gradual (uniformitarian) processes, similar to the processes
we observe in the present, explain the thick, fossil-bearing sedimentary rock
layers all over the earth. These slow geologic processes would require hundreds
of millions of years to deposit all the successive sediment layers.
Furthermore, this popular view holds that slow weathering and erosion gradually
wore away the earth’s surface to produce its relief features, such as hills and
valleys. This view has a problem, however. If the fossil-bearing layers took
hundreds of millions of years to accumulate, then we would expect to find many
examples of weathering and erosion after successive layers were deposited. The
boundaries between many sedimentary strata should be broken by lots of
topographic relief with weathered surfaces. After all, shouldn’t millions of
years worth of weathering and erosion follow each deposition? On the other
hand, the cataclysmic global Flood described in Genesis 7–8 would lead us to
expect something much different. Most of the fossil-bearing layers would have
accumulated in just over one year. Under such catastrophic conditions, even if
land surfaces were briefly exposed to erosion, such erosion (called sheet
erosion) would have been rapid and widespread, leaving behind flat and smooth
surfaces. The erosion would not create the localized topographic relief (hills
and valleys) we see forming at today’s snail’s pace. So, if the Genesis Flood
caused the fossil-bearing geologic record, then we would only expect evidence
of rapid or no erosion at the boundaries between sedimentary strata. So what
evidence do we find? At the boundaries between some sedimentary layers we find
evidence of only rapid erosion. In most other cases, the boundaries are flat,
featureless, and knife-edge, with absolutely no evidence of any erosion, which
is consistent with no long periods of elapsed time, as would be expected during
the global, cataclysmic Genesis Flood. If there were
weathering, we would expect to see soils, but we don’t. Second, we find
boulders and features known as “storm beds” in the Tapeats Sandstone above the
boundary.
3.10 Rock Layers
Folded, Not Fractured
The fossil-bearing
geologic record consists of tens of thousands of feet of sedimentary layers,
though not all these layers are found everywhere around the globe, and their
thickness varies from place to place. At most locations only a small portion is
available to view, such as about 4,500 feet (1371 m) of strata in the walls of
the Grand Canyon. Uniformitarian (long-age) geologists believe that these
sedimentary layers were deposited and deformed over the past 500 million years.
If it really did take millions of years, then individual sediment layers would
have been deposited slowly and the sequences would have been laid down
sporadically. In contrast, if the global cataclysmic Genesis Flood deposited
all these strata in a little more than a year, then the individual layers would
have been deposited in rapid succession, one on top of the other. When
solid, hard rock is bent (or folded) it invariably fractures and breaks because
it is brittle. Rock will bend only if
it is still soft and pliable, “plastic” like modeling clay or children’s Play dough.
If such modeling clay is allowed to dry out, it is no longer pliable but hard
and brittle, so any attempt to bend it will cause it to break and shatter.
When
water deposits sediments in a layer, some water is left behind, trapped between
the sediment grains. Clay particles may also be among the sediment grains. As
other sedimentary layers are laid on top of the deposits, the pressure squeezes
the sedimentary particles closer together and forces out much of the water. The
earth’s internal heat may also remove water from the sediment. As the sediment
layer dries out, the chemicals that were in the water and between the clay
particles convert into natural cement. This cement transforms the originally
soft and wet sediment layer into a hard, brittle rock layer. This process,
known technically as diagenesis, can be exceedingly rapid. It is known to occur within hours but
generally takes days or months, depending on the prevailing conditions. It
doesn’t take millions of years, even under today’s slow-and-gradual geologic conditions.
Conclusion
The Bible records the
true account of creation, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel. The more we find
legends from cultures around the world that contain elements of these actual
events, the more excited the Christian should be to connect these confirmations
to the Bible’s truth. As people left Babel, they took their history with them.
Therefore, we would expect to find cultures with this history of Creation,
Catastrophe, and Confusion, and we would expect it to be corrupted, unlike the
Bible, whose word will never pass away (Luke 21:33). In the Flood stories,
there is almost complete agreement among practically all flood accounts: (a) a
universal destruction by water of the human race and all other living things
occurred; (b) an ark, or boat, was provided as the means of escape for some;
and (c) a seed of mankind was provided to perpetuate the human race. Further, we
find that the geologic evidence is absolutely in harmony with the Word of God.
As the ocean waters flooded over the continents, they must have buried plants
and animals in rapid succession. So, we know now that the Flood of Noah is not mere
myth or fancy of primitive man or solely a doctrine of the Hebrew Scriptures.
The record of the catastrophe is preserved in some of the oldest historical documents
of several distinct races of men, and is indirectly corroborated by the whole
tenor of the early history of most of the civilized races.
