“And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” (Genesis 6:6-8)
Before we get into some scientific information about the Flood, Ark and Ice Age, I would like to go over again why God had to destroy the world (with the exception of those before the age of accountability) of at least 235 million to as many as 3 billion people (“Babel and the World Population..” by Dr. Henry M. Morris). I say go over this again because if you have read our Worldview Part 4 you will know that I spoke of the reasons why God had to judge the world, and how that God is getting ready to judge the world that we live in today, but this time with fire (2 Peter 3:10).
We see around the world today, immorality, homosexuality, and violence are on the increase more and more every day. So God will have to judge our generation too, for its many sins! (For more detail on this look at our Romans Study Part One, Chapter 1)
One of the biggest causes of this entire break down in righteousness was the breakdown of the family before the Flood. You will have to admit we see this happening again before our very eyes. In the days before the Flood people got their eyes off of the LORD and onto the things of the world, “For all that is in the world-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life-is not of the Father but is of the world.” (1 John 2:16)
The sons of God (believers, look at Worldview Part 4) took wives for the wrong reasons. They did not want to obey God and marry only godly women, but they wanted to marry godless women so they could have their fill of sin; this was in clear violation of their consciences and God’s instructions! This is why believers are not to marry unbelievers, look at this verse from 2 Corinthians, ” Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers .” (2 Corinthians 6:14) (For more on this view, look at Answers in Genesis and the article Who Were the Nephilim? by Bodie Hodge)
God wants a godly heritage from our families. ” But did He not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. “Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.
16 “For the Lord God of Israel says that He hates divorce, for it covers one’s garment with violence,” Says the Lord of hosts. Therefore take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously.” (Malachi 2:15-16) But what do we see happening today even among Christians, they are getting divorces as fast as the people in the world!
Many children in the world are growing up without a father figure around, which is the main cause of dysfunctional families and crime (make an on-line search for yourself). “When the family collapses, it is the children that are usually damaged. When it happens on a massive scale, the community itself is crippled,” the president warned. The president was Lyndon B. Johnson. The date was June 4, 1965.
So it was this way before the Flood also, “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually..So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.” (Genesis 6:5, 12)
With the exception of Noah and his family that was the condition of the world at that time. So all that was left, was for God to judge them with the Flood, which is the discussion for Worldview Part Five. We will look at, first, why God judged the world and then how He did it.
We will see that the Ark was well able to handle all the animals needed to be in it, and what happened to the world of people, animals, and earth as a result of the worldwide Flood. Then we would like to spend a little space looking into the Ice Age that followed the Flood and the Mammoths that were trapped in the changing climate. There will also be some possible reasons given why God allowed the Ice Age after the Flood.
Now back to similarities between the time before the Flood and our days! God says that in the last days it will be like it was before the Flood and like it was during the days of Sodom and Gomorrah.
[Jesus said], ” But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be .” (Matthew 24:36-39)
Then He [Jesus] said to the disciples, “The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. 23 And they will say to you, Look here! or Look there! Do not go after them or follow them. 24 For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day. 25 But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. 26 And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man:” (Luke 17:22-26)
“The Second Coming of Jesus won’t be a secret. Some have tried to spiritualize the event and say that it has already happened. But everyone will know what it is when it actually takes place. It will be like lightening, lighting up the whole sky.
“He will come in judgment, gathering everyone in the world to be divided between those who have accepted Him and those who haven’t. The righteous will enter His glorious kingdom, while the unrighteous will go to the place of judgment.
“Of course, we will be taken away in the Rapture before this time of judgment arrives. Like Noah and Lot, we will be removed before judgment is poured out.” ( The Word For Today Bible Chuck Smith)
Do we also see in our day a ‘falling away’ from the truths of God’s Word that have been taught and believed for 2,000 years? Yes, prophecy of the end time is coming to pass, just as Scripture foretells.
“Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, 2 not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. 3 Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, 4 who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
“5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? 6 And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.” (2 Thessalonians 2:1-8) (For more information on this look at our Summary of Prophecy.)
Also the little book of Jude, so important for us today, tells us what will happen in our time even as Enoch prophesied before the Flood:
“Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. 4 For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Old and New Apostates
“5 But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day; 7 as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
“8 Likewise also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries. 9 Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses (look at our Discussion question for more on this), dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”
“10 But these speak evil of whatever they do not know; and whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves. 11 Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. (Many ‘pastors’ today do it for the money-not because they believe the Bible is true, be aware of them, and leave any church that is led by such a man or woman. See also our tract Should homosexuals be allowed to lead the church?)
Apostates Depraved and Doomed
“12 These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; 13 raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
“14 Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, 15 to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”
Apostates Predicted
“16 These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage. 17 But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: 18 how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts. 19 These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit.
Maintain Your Life with God
“20 But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
“22 And on some have compassion, making a distinction; 23 but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.” (Jude 3-23)
All you have to do is read the headlines of the news of today and you will see all of these things happening. Here is just one example:
(CBS) ” Last March [2003], Gene Robinson took his place as the ninth Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, becoming the first openly gay bishop in the history of Christendom.
“It set off a crisis that threatens to tear apart this influential Protestant denomination. There are more than two million Episcopalians in America, and worldwide there are 75 million in what is known as the Anglican Communion.
“Many of these cannot accept a practicing homosexual as a church leader. That puts Robinson, a 56-year-old divorced father of two living in a long-term relationship with his partner, at Ground Zero in the continuing debate over how far society is willing to go in accepting homosexuality.” (CBS)
People are like sheep, we follow each other, we see someone doing something wrong and we want to do it too. Not that many years ago, abortion was considered very wrong. Not too long ago, homosexuality was considered extremely wrong, but now words in our vocabulary like same-sex marriage are commonplace. Many people are accepting these things as ‘normal’. Violence and lawlessness also are on the increase, and will continue to increase until Christ returns to this earth as its King.
“9 The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, 10 and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11 And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, 12 that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2 Thessalonians 2:7-12)
And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in My name, saying, I am the Christ, and will deceive many. 6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these thingsmust come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
9″Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. 10 And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. 11 Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. 12 And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But he who endures to the end shall be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:4-14)
“And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.” (Luke 17:26-30)
The people then were living as if everything would go on just like it always had, but the Flood changed this thinking real quickly. It was not as if they did not have any warnings, though, there were those believers like Methuselah and Noah. Noah preached for 120 years before the Flood. He preached about the need to repent because judgment was coming.
“For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; 5 and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly.” (2 Peter 2:4-5)
“Then the LORD said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and all your household. (Genesis 7:1a) “Notice the Lord didn’t say, “Go into the ark.” He said, “Come into the ark.” So God, it would seem, was in the ark, inviting Noah to come on in.
“The Lord is with us, and how glorious it is to have the Lord with us especially in the storms of life. God invites us, ‘Come on into the ark,’ the place of safety, the place of refuge that God has prepared that we might survive the flood of judgment that is going to come against evil.” ( The Word For Today Bible Chuck Smith)
Today, I say to you, have you received Christ as your personal Savior? Judgment is coming and the only way to avoid it is to be right with God! Jesus loves you and wants to save you. God is not willing that any perish, but the choice is yours.
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household (family).” (Acts 16:31) If you want to be sure you know you are going to heaven, pray this prayer right now:
God in heaven, I believe that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary and that He is both God and man. I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins, and that He came to life again the third day. Right now I repent of my sins, and invite Christ to come into me, take away my sin, and make me a child of God, in Jesus name I pray, Amen. (We have an article on this: What Does it Mean to be Born Again? )
Now we want to get back into what happened during the Flood and afterwards in the Ice Age. I will be up front with you, I will be using much of the material by Ken Ham on his wonderful website Answers in Genesis, and also material from the Institute for Creation Research by the late Dr. Henry M. Morris and others.
I am so thankful that Dr. Henry M. Morris came to speak at Multnomah where I was in Bible School at the time. I am not sure where I would be today, on this subject, if it were not for brother Morris and ICR. So since these ministries have been leaders in the study of Creation and the Flood I will referrer to their information often. As you might expect, I will emphasis especially, the teaching of our dear brother in Christ, Dr. Henry M. Morris.
I will further admit to you that I am not a scientist, even though I have taken some classes and taught some science in public schools. This is another reason I will rely heavily on those who are scientists. Now let us get into the history of the World-wide Flood in Noah’s Day and the Ice Age that followed.
“Many Christians today think the Flood of Noah’s time was only a local flood, confined to somewhere around Mesopotamia. This idea comes not from Scripture, but from the notion of ‘billions of years’ of Earth history.
“But look at the problems this concept involves:
• If the Flood was local, why did Noah have to build an Ark? He could have walked to the other side of the mountains and missed it.
• If the Flood was local, why did God send the animals to the Ark so they would escape death? There would have been other animals to reproduce that kind if these particular ones had died.
• If the Flood was local, why was the Ark big enough to hold all kinds of land vertebrate animals that have ever existed? If only Mesopotamian animals were aboard, the Ark could have been much smaller.
• If the Flood was local, why would birds have been sent on board? These could simply have winged across to a nearby mountain range.
• If the Flood was local, how could the waters rise to 15 cubits (8 meters) above the mountains (Genesis 7:20)? Water seeks its own level. It couldn’t rise to cover the local mountains while leaving the rest of the world untouched.
• If the Flood was local, people who did not happen to be living in the vicinity would not be affected by it. They would have escaped God’s judgment on sin . If this happened, what did Christ mean when He likened the coming judgment of all men to the judgment of ‘all‘ men (Matthew 24:37-39) in the days of Noah? A partial judgment in Noah’s day means a partial judgment to come.
• If the Flood was local, God would have repeatedly broken His promise never to send such a flood again.
“Belief in a world-wide Flood, as Scripture clearly indicates, has the backing of common sense, science and Christ Himself.” (First published: Creation 21(3): 49 June 1999) http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v21/i3/flood.asp?vPrint=1
The Bible makes it extremely clear that Noah’s Flood was worldwide
“Whatever post-Flood disasters may have taken place, one must never marginalise the Flood itself. Clearly Genesis 6-8 is there to show to mankind that in a very major way, God judged the world in its entirety. The Hebrew word mabbul in the Old Testament and the Greek kataklusmos in the New are used only of the Genesis Flood.A glance at a concordance will show that there are other Hebrew and Greek words used which can be translated to the English ‘flood’, but mabbul and kataklusmos are generally the words reserved as technical terms for the Genesis Flood.
“.The extent of the Genesis Flood is partly determined by the meaning of the word ‘earth’ (Hebrew erets ) in Genesis 1-10, and (Greek kosmos ) in 2 Peter 3:5-7. What is erets in Gen. 6:1 referring to? It cannot indicate Eden (Gen. 2:8), since Adam and Eve were evicted from it (Gen. 3:23). Nor can it be restricted to the ‘land of Nod’, where Cain and his descendants settled (and from where they may have spread, Gen. 4:16), since those who had increased in numbers included the descendants of Seth (Gen. 5:6ff.).
“Genesis 6:5-7 suggests that the reference is therefore to the ‘earth’ of Gen. 1:1 and 2:1 (i.e. all that is not the ‘heavens’), for in Gen. 6:7 there is an echo of the creation (Hebrew bara ) of men and animal life recorded in Gen. 1:20-30. Moreover the words of Gen. 8:22 would hardly follow, if the promise in v. 21 applied only to the inhabitants of the early Middle East, for ‘seedtime and harvest’ are universal phenomena, in the same way that ‘day and night’ bring us to the universal context of creation (Gen. 1:5).
“This apparent universality continues in Gen. 9, where it is not regional man whose life is protected by law, but man made in God’s image (v. 6). Accordingly, the covenant of Gen. 9:9ff. establishes the universally experienced rainbow as the pledge of God’s promise never again to destroy the whole earth (the word again is erets ).
“2 Peter 3 clinches this line of reasoning, for in this chapter, Peter refutes uniformitarianism [Is the belief that everything has always been the same on the earth with no major changes to what we see happening today.] (v. 4) and proclaims that uniformitarians are ‘willingly ignorant’.
“He then states that after the creation of the heavens and the earth in Gen. 1:1-2, the ‘world [Greek kosmos] that then was, being overflowed with water, perished’ (v.6). The fact that the ‘ heavens and earth which are now . are . reserved unto fire’ (v. 7), and will be replaced by ‘a new heavens and a new earth’ (v. 13) strongly suggests that the ‘world’ in v. 6 (equivalent to the erets of Gen. 6) was universal in extent.” (Genesis and Catasrophe, The Flood as the major biblical cataclysm by Andy C. McIntosh, Tom Edmondson and Steve Taylor)
“The Flood, according to biblical chronology, occurred approximately 4,500 years ago. Most of the world’s cultures have legends of events which are remarkably similar to the Flood account recorded in Genesis. These stories have a common thread, conforming to local conditions: a warning is given by God (or gods) of a coming flood to punish wickedness; the person warned is instructed to build a vessel of safety for himself, his family, and the other living creatures; the world is destroyed by water; the occupants of the vessel repopulate the earth. Many other specific themes from Genesis (sending out birds, landing on a mountain, the rainbow, post-Flood sacrifice) are often present too.
“Evolutionists are forced to explain these similarities by coincidence. But such widespread recollections across the world are precisely what we would expect if the Flood described in Genesis did take place. It is well known that local traditions and embellishments tend to exaggerate and distort events as they become entrenched in a culture’s folklore, especially if transmitted orally. Hence, the addition of clearly mythical elements in some legends.” (First published: Creation 22(1): 10-14 December 1999 by Steve Cardno)
Preparation for catastrophe (Genesis 6:14-7:16)
[In this section I will feature the teaching of Dr. Henry M. Morris, but I will put comments in brackets. Dr. Morris’ teaching will be in quotations.]
[“Noah’s day did not come without warning. God first revealed His plan for catastrophic, global judgment nearly a millennium earlier to Enoch, who named his son Methuselah to commemorate the astounding revelation. The name Methuselah conveys an ominous foreboding and literally means, ‘When he dies, it shall be sent.’ (Henry M. Morris, ‘The Genesis Record’) It is no coincidence that Methuselah died mere months before the great flood and that his lifespan is the longest in recorded history.” (Israel My Glory) 08/08]
“In order to preserve human and animal life on the earth, God instructed Noah to build a huge barge-like structure, called an ark in which the occupants would be saved from destruction in the coming Flood. [For more on what the ark might have looked like see Answers in Genesis by Ken Ham. However later in this article we will talk about the specifics of the size, etc.]
“Only Noah [whose name means rest] and his family had resisted the corruption surrounding them. At the time of God’s first announcement of the Flood, Noah’s father and grandfather, Lamech and Methuselah, were still living, but Lamech died five years before it came, and Methuselah died in the very year of the Flood.” [For more on this look at Longevity Chart Adam to Joseph put out by Creation Science Evangelism Dr. Kent Hovind www.drdino.com]
[Actually, according to the Bible Adam died 126 years before Noah was born, and Seth died 24 years before Noah. Interestingly enough Enoch was taken to heaven early, only 69 years before Noah. In fact, all these following men, because of their longevity, were still alive in Noah’s life: Enosh, Cainan, Mahalalel, Jared, Methuselah, Lamech. These men loved the Lord and were fine witnesses for the God of the universe. (Read Worldview Part 4 to find out what happened to many other believers.)]
“According to God’s instructions, the Ark was to be designed for floating stability and capacity rather than for moving through the sea. [God would protect miracuiously those in the Ark.] The dimensions were to be 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high.
“Assuming that the cubit was 17.5 inches in length (the exact value is uncertain, but this is the smallest number suggested by any of the authorities) [the dictionary defines a cubit as: An ancient unit of linear measure, originally equal to the length of the forearm from the tip of the middle finger to the elbow or from 17 to 22 inches], the total volumetric capacity of the Ark was approximately 1,400,000 cubic feet, the same as that of 522 standard livestock cars such as used on modern American railroads.
“A few other details of its construction are given. It had three stories, each ten cubits high, one window, probably extending all around the top, and one door in the side. It was made of gopher wood (the modern equivalent of which is unknown) and made waterproof with ‘pitch.’ It was fitted with ‘rooms’ (literally ‘cells’ or ‘nests’) for the animals.
“The word for ‘pitch’ is different from that used in other places in the Old Testament. It means, simply, ‘covering’ and is exactly the same as the Hebrew word for atonement , as in Leviticus 17:11. Whatever the exact substance may have been, it sufficed as a perfect coving for the Ark, to keep out the waters of judgment, just as the blood of the Lamb provides a perfect atonement for the soul.
“According to God’s statement to Noah (Genesis 6:17), the Flood would not only destroy mankind but also ‘all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven.’ In order to ‘keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth’ (7:3), Noah was instructed to take two of every kind of animal into the Ark with him, one male and one female. Of the ‘clean’ animals, (evidently those to be used for domestication and sacrifice), seven were to be taken aboard. [God would bring the animals to Noah so he wasn’t out looking for them. ‘two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive.’ (Genesis 6:20)]
“.The construction of the Ark and the other necessary preparations seem to have occupied 120 years (note Genesis 6:3). God announced, possibly through Methuselah or another of His prophets, as well as Noah, that His Spirit would only ‘strive with man’ for another 120 years. [Then God would get his ‘rest’ through Noah.] Undoubtedly, Noah also spent much of this period preaching, warning men of the coming judgment (2 Peter 2:5). But the uniformitarians of his day no doubt ridiculed such preaching.
“They had never seen a flood, or even rain [Genesis2: 4,5,10-14] and the huge box Noah was building must have been a source of rich amusement to them. Their ‘science’ had proved that a ‘flood of waters’ was quite impossible, and so they went on ‘eating and drinking, marrying and giving in (possibly translatable as ‘getting out of’) marriage.'”
“Until the Flood came! Noah had been warned of God ‘of things not seen as yet,’ and he preferred to believe the Word of God rather than the uniformitarian scientists of his day. Therefore, he ‘prepared an ark to the saving of his house’ (Hebrews 11:7). (Science Scripture and Salvation .The Genesis Record By Henry M. Morris) [Today we are told, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” God wants us to go to heaven by families!]
Could the Ark have carried all the animals? By Jonathan Sarfati
“Many skeptics assert that the Bible must be wrong, because they claim that the Ark could not possibly have carried all the different types of animals. This has persuaded some Christians to deny the Genesis Flood, or believe that it was only a local flood involving comparatively few local animals.
“But they usually have not actually performed the calculations. On the other hand, the classic creationist book The Genesis Flood contained a detailed analysis as far back as 1961. A more detailed and updated technical study of this and many other questions is John Woodmorappe’s book Noah’s Ark: a Feasibility Study . This article is based on material in these books plus some independent calculations. There are two questions to ask:
- How many types of animals did Noah need to take?
- Was the ark large enough to hold all the required animals?
How many types of animals did Noah need to take?
“And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. 20 Of the birds after their kind, of animals after their kind, and of every creeping thing of the earth after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. 21 And you shall take for yourself of all food that is eaten, and you shall gather it to yourself; and it shall be food for you and for them.”
22 Thus Noah did; according to all that God commanded him, so he did.” (Genesis 6:19-22)
“Then the Lord said to Noah, ‘Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation. 2 You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals thatare unclean, a male and his female; 3 also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of all the earth.” (Genesis 7:1-3)
“In the original Hebrew, the word for ‘beast’ and ‘cattle’ [KJV] in these passages [‘animals’ in the NKJV] is the same: behemah , and it refers to land vertebrate animals in general. The word for ‘creeping things’ is remes , which has a number of different meanings in Scripture, but here it probably refers to reptiles. Noah did not need to take sea creatures because they would not necessarily be threatened with extinction by a flood. However, turbulent water would cause massive carnage, as seen in the fossil record, and many oceanic species probably did become extinct because of the Flood.
“However, if God in His wisdom had decided not to preserve some ocean creatures, this was none of Noah’s business. Noah did not need to take plants either-many could have survived as seeds, and others could have survived on floating mats of vegetation. Many insects and other invertebrates were small enough to have survived on these mats as well. The Flood wiped out all land animals which breathed through nostrils except those on the Ark (Genesis 7:22). Insects do not breathe through nostrils but through tiny tubes in their exterior skeleton.
“Clean animals: Bible commentators are evenly divided about whether the Hebrew means ‘seven’ or ‘seven pairs’ of each type of clean animal. Woodmorappe takes the latter just to concede as much to the biblioskeptics as possible. But the vast majority of animals are not clean, and were represented by only two specimens each. The term ‘clean animal’ was not defined until the Mosaic Law. But since Moses was also the compiler of Genesis, if we follow the principle that ‘Scripture interprets Scripture’, the Mosaic Law definitions can be applied to the Noahic situation. There are actually very few ‘clean’ land animals listed in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14.
“What is a ‘kind’? God created a number of different types of animals with much capacity for variation within limits. The descendants of each of these different kinds, apart from humans, would today mostly be represented by a larger grouping than what is called a species. In most cases, those species descended from a particular original kind would be grouped today within what modern taxonomists (biologists who classify living things) call a genus (plural genera ).
“One common definition of a species is a group of organisms which can interbreed and produce fertile offspring, and cannot mate with other species. However, most of the so-called species (obviously all the extinct ones) have not been tested to see what they can or cannot mate with.
“In fact, not only are there known crosses between so-called species, but there are many instances of trans-generic mating, so the ‘kind’ may in some cases be as high as the family. Identifying the ‘kind’ with the genus is also consistent with Scripture, which spoke of kinds in a way that the Israelites could easily recognize without the need for tests of reproductive isolation.
“For example, horses, zebras and donkeys are probably descended from an equine (horse-like) kind, since they can interbreed, although the offspring are sterile. Dogs, wolves, coyotes and jackals are probably from a canine (dog-like) kind.
“All different types of domestic cattle (which are clean animals) are descended from the Aurochs , so there were probably at most seven (or fourteen) domestic cattle aboard. The Aurochs itself may have been descended from a cattle kind including bisons and water buffaloes. We know that tigers and lions can produce hybrids called tigons and ligers, so it is likely that they are descended from the same original kind.
“Woodmorappe totals about 8000 genera, including extinct genera, thus about 16,000 individual animals which had to be aboard. With extinct genera, there is a tendency among some paleontologists to give each of their new finds a new genus name. But this is arbitrary, so the number of extinct genera is probably highly overstated.
“Consider the sauropods, which were the largest dinosaurs-the group of huge plant-eaters like Brachiosaurus, Diplodocus, Apatosaurus , etc. There are 87 sauropod genera commonly cited, but only 12 are ‘firmly established’ and another 12 are considered ‘fairly well established’.
“One commonly raised problem is ‘How could you fit all those huge dinosaurs on the Ark?’ First, of the 668 supposed dinosaur genera, only 106 weighed more than ten tons when fully grown.
“Second, as said above, the number of dinosaur genera is probably greatly exaggerated. But these numbers are granted by Woodmorappe to be generous to skeptics.
“Third, the Bible does not say that the animals had to be fully grown. The largest animals were probably represented by ‘teenage’ or even younger specimens. The median size of all animals on the ark would actually have been that of a small rat, according to Woodmorappe’s up-to-date tabulations, while only about 11 % would have been much larger than a sheep.
“Another problem often raised by atheists and theistic evolutionists is ‘how did disease germs survive the flood?’ This is a leading question-it presumes that germs were as specialized and infectious as they are now, so all the Ark’s inhabitants must have been infected with every disease on earth.
“But germs were probably more robust in the past, and have only fairly recently lost the ability to survive in different hosts or independently of a host. In fact, even now many germs can survive in insect vectors or corpses, or in the dried or frozen state, or be carried by a host without causing disease. Finally, loss of resistance to disease is consistent with the general degeneration of life since the Fall. 6
Thinking Outside the Box, by Tim Lovett:
“The research team found that the proportions of Noah’s Ark carefully balanced the conflicting demands of stability (resistance to capsizing), comfort (“seakeeping”), and strength. In fact, the Ark has the same proportions as a modern cargo ship.
“The study also confirmed that the Ark could handle waves as high as 100 ft (30 m). Dr. Hong is now director general of the facility and claims “life came from the sea,” obviously not the words of a creationist on a mission to promote the worldwide Flood. Endorsing the seaworthiness of Noah’s Ark obviously did not damage Dr. Hong’s credibility.
Source: worldwideflood.com/ark/hull_form/hull_optimization.htm
Dr. Seon Won Hong was principal research scientist when he headed up the Noah’s Ark investigation. In May 2005 Dr. Hong was appointed director general of MOERI (formerly KRISO). Dr. Hong earned a B.S. degree in naval architecture from Seoul National University and a Ph.D. degree in applied mechanics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
“The Bible gives clear instruction for the construction of a number of things, but it does not specify many aspects of the Ark’s construction. Nothing in this newly depicted Ark contradicts Scripture, even though it may be different from more accepted designs. But this design, in fact, shows us just how reasonable Scripture is as it depicts a stable, comfortable, and seaworthy vessel that was capable of fulfilling all the requirements stated in Scripture.
“Scripture gives no clue about the shape of Noah’s Ark beyond its proportions that are given in Genesis 6:15, which reads: “And this is how you shall make it: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits” (NKJV).
Was the ark large enough to hold all the required animals?
[Remember the size?] “The Ark measured 300x50x30 cubits (Genesis 6:15), which is about 140x23x13.5 metres or 459x75x44 feet, so its volume was 43,500 m 3 (cubic metres) or 1.54 million cubic feet. To put this in perspective, this is the equivalent volume of 522 standard American railroad stock cars, each of which can hold 240 sheep.
“If the animals were kept in cages with an average size of 50x50x30 centimetres (20x20x12 inches), that is 75,000 cm 3 (cubic centimetres) or 4800 cubic inches, the 16,000 animals would only occupy 1200 m 3 (42,000 cubic feet) or 14.4 stock cars. Even if a million insect species had to be on board, it would not be a problem, because they require little space. If each pair was kept in cages of 10 cm (four inches) per side, or 1000 cm 3, all the insect species would occupy a total volume of only 1000 m 3, or another 12 cars.
“This would leave room for five trains of 99 cars each for food, Noah’s family and ‘range’ for the animals. However, insects are not included in the meaning of behemah or remes in Genesis 6:19-20, so Noah probably would not have taken them on board as passengers anyway.
“Tabulating the total volume is fair enough, since this shows that there would be plenty of room on the Ark for the animals with plenty left over for food, range etc. It would be possible to stack cages, with food on top or nearby (to minimize the amount of food carrying the humans had to do), to fill up more of the Ark space, while still allowing plenty of room for gaps for air circulation.
“We are discussing an emergency situation, not necessarily luxury accommodation. Although there is plenty of room for exercise, skeptics have overstated animals’ needs for exercise anyway.
“Even if we don’t allow stacking one cage on top of another to save floor space, there would be no problem. Woodmorappe shows from standard recommended floor space requirements for animals that all of them together would have needed less than half the available floor space of the Ark’s three decks. This arrangement allows for the maximum amount of food and water storage on top of the cages close to the animals.
Food requirements
“The Ark would probably have carried compressed and dried foodstuffs, and probably a lot of concentrated food. Perhaps Noah fed the cattle mainly on grain, plus some hay for fiber.
“Woodmorappe calculated that the volume of foodstuffs would have been only about 15 % of the Ark’s total volume. Drinking water would only have taken up 9.4 % of the volume. This volume would be reduced further if rainwater was collected and piped into troughs.
Excretory requirements
“It is doubtful whether the humans had to clean the cages every morning. Possibly they had sloped floors or slatted cages, where the manure could fall away from the animals and be flushed away (plenty of water around!) or destroyed by vermicomposting (composting by worms) which would also provide earthworms as a food source. Very deep bedding can sometimes last for a year without needing a change. Absorbent material (e.g. sawdust, softwood wood shavings and especially peat moss) would reduce the moisture content and hence the odor.
Hibernation
“The space, feeding and excretory requirements were adequate even if the animals had normal day/night sleeping cycles. But hibernation is a possibility which would reduce these requirements even more.
“It is true that the Bible does not mention it, but it does not rule it out either. Some creationists suggest that God created the hibernation instinct for the animals on the Ark, but we should not be dogmatic either way.
“Some skeptics argue that food taken on board rules out hibernation, but this is not so. Hibernating animals do not sleep all winter, despite popular portrayals, so they would still need food occasionally.
“This article has shown that the Bible can be trusted on testable matters like Noah’s Ark. Many Christians believe that the Bible can only be trusted on matters of faith and morals, not scientific matters. But we should consider what Jesus Christ Himself told Nicodemus (John 3:12): ‘If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?‘
“Similarly, if the Scriptures can be wrong on testable matters such as geography, history and science, why should they be trusted on matters like the nature of God and life after death, which are not open to empirical testing? Hence Christians should ‘ be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you ‘ (1 Peter 3:15), when skeptics claim that the Bible conflicts with known ‘scientific facts’. (How did all the animals fit on Noah’s Ark? By Jonathan Sarfati, First published:Creation 19(2): 16-19 March 1999)
The Genesis Flood by Dr. Henry M. Morris:
“In its long history, the earth has suffered much under the effects of the curse. Heat and cold, floods and droughts, earthquakes and eruptions-all kinds of physical upheavals-have disturbed its crust and the inhabitants dwelling on its surface. But immeasurably greater in magnitude and extent than all other physical catastrophes combined was the great Flood, which overwhelmed the earth in the days of Noah.
“In our modern age of science and skepticism the enormity of this great event of the past has been all but forgotten. Somehow its testimony to the awfulness of sin and the reality of divine retribution is so disturbingly unwelcome that men have sought at all costs to explain it away. Even conservative Christians, although professing belief in the divine inspiration of Scripture, have often ignored its significance. In this [section], however, we want to examine carefully the full implications of the Biblical record of this great catastrophe.
“In Noah’s day, men scoffed at the warnings of the coming Flood; in our day, men scoff at the record of the historical Flood. Nevertheless, as the Lord Jesus said: ‘The Flood came, and destroyed them all’ (Luke 17:27).
“The record of the Flood in Genesis gives every indication of being an eye-witness account, written originally by Noah or his sons. Despite the efforts of many commentators to explain it away as a local flood, it is obvious that the writer intended to tell of a worldwide, uniquely destructive cataclysm. In fact, it would be difficult to imagine how the concept of a universal Flood could be better presented than in the words actually recorded in Genesis.
“In the first place, the skies poured down torrents of water continually for forty days and forty nights (Genesis 7:12,17), which would be quite impossible under present meteorologic conditions. The only possible source for such a downpour would seem to be the condensation and precipitation of the antediluvian vapor canopy, the ‘waters above the firmament’ of Genesis 1:7.
“Then, as the waters increased and the Ark began to float, verse 18 says the water ‘prevailed,’ a word meaning literally ‘were overwhelmingly mighty.’ The next verse says they ‘prevailed exceedingly,’ until ‘all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered.’
“And then the waters still rose until the mountains were covered,- to a depth of at least fifteen cubits (verse 20). This depth was evidently the depth to which the Ark sank in the water, half its height, so that it could now float freely over the highest mountaintops.
“Such a condition obviously must have been worldwide. With waters now covering the globe, as well as massive cloudbanks formed by the condensation of the vapor canopy, the world seemed almost to have reverted back to its primeval condition as described in Genesis 1:2.
“The universality and totality of the Flood is further emphasized in verses 21-23 [of chapter 7], which stress the completeness of the destruction of all air-breathing creatures in the whole earth, ‘All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.’ Only those in the Ark were spared.
“The conditions ‘prevailed’ for a hundred and fifty days, with waters continuing to descend from the heavens and to issue from the great clefts in the earth’s crust throughout this entire period, though perhaps not as steadily and torrentially as during the first forty days. Finally (Genesis 8:1-3), the fountains were stopped and the waters began to go down.
“Occasionally, critics say there was not enough water to cover the earth. There is an equivalent depth of water vapor in the present atmosphere of less than two inches and this would hardly suffice for such a catastrophe! But there is plenty of water in the present ocean basins if the topography were slightly redistributed. If the earth’s crust were evened out to form a smooth ball, the waters in the oceans would cover it to a depth of nearly two miles!
“These oceans now contain, of course, the tremendous quantities of water that came up from ‘the fountains of the great deep’ and down from ‘the windows of heaven’ during the Flood.
“In order for the lands to emerge from the waters it is clear that a great ‘continental uplift’ had to take place. That is, the continents had to rise and the ocean basins to be depressed on a tremendous scale. This event seems to be mentioned in Psalm 104:6-9 (A.S.V.), especially verse 8: ‘The mountains rose, the valleys sank down.’
“The physical mechanisms which God used to bring about the great uplift are not known. The soils and other light materials of the dry land had been eroded and washed into the antediluvian seas. Similarly the ocean bed had been upheaved by the bursting open of ‘the fountains of the great deep.’ The subterranean reservoirs of water were emptied as the water escaped to the surface, leaving great empty caverns in the crust below the surface.
“Such a condition was unstable and could not persist for long. The heavy materials beneath the old land surfaces perhaps eventually began to sink, squeezing laterally underneath the lighter sediments in the adjacent basins, pushing them up to form continents and mountain ranges.
“Thus to some extent the land and water areas of the antediluvian earth may have been interchanged by the Flood, except that the water areas are now much more extensive. Perhaps, this is the meaning of Job 12:15, which says that, when God sent the waters forth, they ‘overturned the earth.’
“The trigger mechanism that upset the unstable equilibrium and set the uplifting forces into operation seems to have been a great worldwide storm of wind (Genesis 8:1), with attendant electrical phenomena (Psalm 104:7).
“The wind was probably caused by the strong difference of temperature between polar and equatorial regions, brought about by removal of the thermal vapor canopy. The resulting giant waves and piling-up of waters possibly created just enough additional unbalance of forces to cause tectonic movements to begin. Once begun, they would continue until the present equilibrium between continental and oceanic areas had been attained.
“As the waters went down, the Ark finally lodged securely upon one of the mountains of Ararat, in what is now Armenia. This occurred on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. This day thus became, in effect, the ‘resurrection day’ for the earth, and especially for the Ark and those preserved in it through the earth’s great baptism.
“It is no doubt significant, therefore, that the anniversary of this date, many centuries later, was the date on which Christ rose from the dead! The seventh month of the Jewish civil year later was made the first month of the religious year, and the Passover was set for the fourteenth day of that month (Exodus 12:2).
“Christ, our Passover, was slain on that day, but then rose three days later, on the seventeenth day of the seventh month of the civil calendar! Securely anchored on the earth again, Noah and the others needed only to wait until the waters receded enough for them to disembark. But this took yet another seven months, so that they were evidently in the Ark slightly over a year, probably 371 days altogether.
“As the time passed, the tops of nearby lower mountains came into view. Noah finally released a raven and a dove. The dove returned but the raven, a scavenger bird with no qualms about resting on unclean surface, stayed.
“A week later Noah sent out the dove again, which returned this time with a fresh olive leaf, indicating that seedlings or cuttings from the hardy olive tree were already beginning to grow again on the mountain sides. Finally, the ground was sufficiently dried for the occupants of the Ark to disembark.
“Any field of science which deals with earth history, (such as geology, paleontology, archaeology, etc.), must give full consideration to the extensive effects of the Flood on the data with which they deal, if their interpretation of earth history is to be legitimate.
“For the most part, however, this requirement has been either rejected or ignored by modern earth scientists. Instead, their interpretation of earth history has been built around the principle of uniformity, which explicitly denies any great geological catastrophe such as the Flood, and assumes that all geological formations were laid down by the ordinary processes of nature, acting at essentially the same rates as at present.
“On the basis of this assumption, the tremendous size of many deposits seems to have required millions of years for their formation. However, the very same deposits can usually be explained equally well or better in terms of catastrophic deposition resulting from the Flood.
“The most important scientific implication of the Flood has to do with the fossils. The sedimentary rocks which comprise most of the earth’s crust in continental areas, have been deposited in layers known as strata by settling out of moving water. This is why they are called sedimentary rocks. Contained in these sediments are the fossils, remains of animals which once lived on the earth.
“Many of these kinds of animals are now extinct and often (not always, by any means) they are found in a more or less regular order, with simpler fossils in the lower strata and the larger and more complex fossils higher up. This set of phenomena has been interpreted to teach the gradual evolution of living forms from the simple to the complex over great ages of geological time.
“In fact, this is the only important line of evidence supporting the theory of organic evolution! The geologic ages supposedly represented by the respective strata are actually identified and classified by the types of fossils they contain.
“But a serious and tragic fallacy is present in this interpretation. Fossils necessarily speak of death and these rocks contain literally multiplied million of fossilized animals. Death in turn speaks of sin and judgment – ‘the wages of sin is death’ – (Romans 6:23a) and according to Scripture there was no death in the world before Adam’s sin (Romans 5:14; 1 Corinthians 15:22) and God’s curse on the whole creation. The fossils must therefore have been buried after Adam’s fall!
“This in turn means that only a catastrophic death and burial can explain most of them, and the only catastrophe adequate in scope, variety and intensity is the Genesis Flood. Thus the fossils, rightly interpreted, will be found not to be proof of a long history of development and evolution [evil-o-lution, the British pronunciation] on the earth, but rather to be a testimony to the great power and righteous judgment of the sovereign God, manifest in unprecedented majesty when ‘the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.’
AFTER THE FLOOD (Genesis 8:15-9:4)
“.The world after the Flood was very different from the world Noah and his family had known before the Flood. The Ark had provided the bridge – seemingly fragile and easily demolished, but actually impregnable and secure – from the old cosmos through the terrible Cataclysm to the present cosmos.
“The lands that once had teemed with animals and people and lush vegetation now were barren and forbidding. The air, which formerly was warm and still, now moved in stiff and sometimes violent winds, and there was a chill on the mountain slope where the Ark rested.
“Dark clouds rolling about the sky, which had once been perpetually and pleasantly bright, seemed to threaten more rains and another flood. But the earth had been purged of the wicked hordes that had made its physical beauty only a mockery, and God had granted a gracious opportunity for a new beginning fro the children of Adam.
“A year and seventeen days earlier, God had said to Noah: ‘ Come into the ark, you and all your household’ (Genesis 7:1). But now He said: ‘Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you.’ (Genesis 8:16) In both commands, God was speaking as from a location within the ark.
“The Ark, of course, is a wonderful type of the Lord Jesus Christ, carrying us safely through the baptismal waters of purging and death to a new life in Him. And these two commands, not contradictory but complementary (‘enter the ark’ – ‘leave the ark’), strikingly remind us of two complementary commands of Christ. First, He says, Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. ‘ (Matthew 11:28)
“This command, all the more meaningful when we remember that ‘rest’ was the very meaning of Noah’s prophetic name, is but the preparation for His great command: Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. (Mark 16:15)
“The animals occupants of the ark, now awakened from their long rest in the ark, were also brought forth, and instructed to ‘breed abundantly’ and to ‘multiply upon the earth.’ They and their progeny gradually spread out from Ararat, undoubtedly migrating and multiplying over many generations, until they found environments suited to their particular nature and needs.
“The Scriptures are clear in insisting that ‘ Every animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever creeps on the earth, according to their families, went out of the ark.’ (Genesis 8:19) All the earth’s present dry-land animals, therefore, are descendants of those that were once on the ark.
“In like manner, all the present races of mankind are descended from Noah’s family. ‘These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread’ (Genesis 9:19).
“The earth’s physical features were vastly changed and many of its physical processes were modified in various ways. The present hydrologic cycle was gradually established, with the energy of the solar radiation serving to draw up water by evaporation from the oceans and then to move it inland by the winds, [where] it can condense into clouds and fall to the ground as rain or snow, finally to run off to the ground as ground water channels back to the ocean again.
“This present hydrologic cycle marvelously provides for the maintenance of life on the present earth, in many different ways. Its ministry is often mentioned in the Bible, and always with remarkable scientific accuracy (for example, note Psalm 33:7; 135:7; Ecclesiastes 1:6,7; Job 26:8; 36:27,28; Isaiah 55:10).
The Noahic Covenant sealed with the Rainbow
“As assurance that, despite the clouds in the sky, and the prospects of more rain and perhaps occasional local floods in the future, there would never again be a universal flood, God established the rainbow. The ‘bow in the cloud’ (9:13) of course requires both sunlight and ‘the cloud’ – that is, liquid water droplets in the air – before it can form.
“Before the Flood, the upper air contained only invisible water vapor, and therefore no rainbow was possible. With the present hydrological cycle, the former vapor canopy is gone, and it is physically impossible now for enough water ever to be raised into the atmosphere to cause a universal flood.
“When a storm has done it worst the clouds are finally exhausted of most of their water, then there always appears a rainbow, and God would have us remember once again His promise after the great Flood.
“This ‘covenant of the rainbow’ also implied new human responsibilities:
“Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. 22 “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.”
Chapter 9 So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. 2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand.
3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. 4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man.
6 “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man. 7 And as for you, be fruitful and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply in it.”
8 Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying: 9 “And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth.
11 Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
12 And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: 13 I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.
14 It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; 15 and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.
16 The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.” (Genesis 8:20-9:17)
The Ice Age — where does it fit?
“The ice age is a popular topic that is often discussed in school, at home, or in Hollywood. Sadly, most people hear the secular/uniformitarian view and don’t look at this subject from a biblical perspective. This is where it gets interesting, though. The secular view has no good mechanism to cause a single ice age, let alone the many they propose. But the Bible does have a mechanism. Let’s take a closer look.” (Michael Oard)
The Ice Age, How did it come about?
“The Flood of Noah’s day was the greatest catastrophe in earth history, and it involved much more than rain. It reshaped the surface of the earth, spawning massive volcanoes and earthquakes that dwarf anything observed in modern times. Such a tremendous catastrophe would have radically altered the earth’s climate, resulting in an Ice Age.
“In general terms, an ‘ice age’ is a time of extensive glacial activity that covers a relatively large area with ice. During the Ice Age, which ended a few thousand years ago, 30% of the land surface of the earth was covered by ice. In North America an ice sheet covered almost all of Canada and the northern United States.
“We know the extent of the Ice Age because the glaciers left features on the landscape similar to features we observe around glaciers today, such as lateral and terminal moraines. A ‘lateral moraine’ is a mound of rocks of varying sizes deposited to the side of a moving glacier, and a “terminal” or “end” moraine is a mound of rocks dumped in front of the glacier.
The Flood-Caused Ice Age
“Two particular aspects of the Flood were instrumental in causing the Ice Age: (1) extensive volcanic activity during and after the Flood, and (2) the warm oceans following the Flood.
“The opening of the ‘fountains of the great deep’ and the resulting worldwide Flood would have caused upheavals and tremendous volcanic activity. A shroud of volcanic dust and aerosols (very small particles) would have been cast into the stratosphere and trapped there for several years following the Flood.
“These particles would have reflected some of the sunlight back to space and caused cooler summers, mainly over large landmasses. Extensive volcanic activity would have continued for a number of years after the Flood and gradually declined as crustal magma solidified and crustal movements lessened.
“There is abundant evidence of extraordinary volcanic activity during the Ice Age, which would have replenished the dust and aerosols in the stratosphere. Ice cores taken from Greenland and Antarctica also show abundant volcanic particles and acids in the sections associated with the Ice Age.
“An Ice Age also requires huge amounts of water in the atmosphere, which then falls as snow. But where would the tremendous amounts of water necessary to saturate the atmosphere have come from? The Genesis account records that the ‘fountains of the great deep’ burst forth during the Flood (Genesis 7:11).
“Movements in the earth’s crust would have released high-pressure outflows of deep, hot water reservoirs, while huge volcanoes and large underwater lava flows would have added heat to the oceans. The rapid Flood currents would mix the warm water, driving it from pole to pole. Warm water would prevent the formation of ice in the sea. As a result, the warm ocean would have a much higher level of evaporation than that in the modern cool ocean.
“Under such conditions, most of the resulting snow would fall in the middle latitudes and polar regions. Warm water and cold continents are a recipe for powerful and continuous snowstorms, whose behavior can be estimated using basic weather principles.
The Rapid Ice Age
“Based on what we know about atmospheric science, we can estimate where the warm water would evaporate, how deep the ice would become, and even how long the Ice Age would last. To answer these questions, we need to know how long the major volcanic activity lasted and how much time passed before the oceans cooled. Once the volcanoes waned and the oceans cooled, the ice sheets would have stopped growing and begun to melt.
“I have calculated that at the height of the Ice Age the average depth of ice over much of the Northern Hemisphere was approximately 2,300 ft (701 m) and that it took about 500 years to accumulate to that depth. This approximation was calculated by estimating the sources of water vapor, including evaporation from the warm ocean at mid- and high-latitude as it cooled, and transport from low latitudes to higher latitudes.
“Two-thirds of the cooling of the oceans is by evaporation of water. By estimating the initial and threshold average ocean temperature, I was also able to estimate the evaporation. I then calculated the approximate proportion of water vapor that would fall on the ice sheet. I used minimums and maximums for the variables and estimated the best value in the middle.
“If we apply the melt equation to ice sheet meltback (about 33 ft [10 m] per year along the edge, but slower in the interior), the gigantic glacial ice sheets (after the peak in accumulation) would have melted within 200 years. Of course, Greenland and Antarctica would have continued to grow because of their high latitude and altitude. Thus, the total time for the Ice Age is a maximum of only about 700 years (500 years to accumulate, 200 years to melt).
The Flood Solves Time Challenges
“Based on what we know about the impact of the global Flood on the continents, sediments, and climate, it is clear that an ice age would not require hundreds of thousands to millions of years, as stipulated by evolutionary beliefs.
“Moreover, it is unnecessary to accept the current complicated evolutionary ideas of about 30 separate ice ages over the past 2.5 million years, with the most recent ones lasting 100,000 years and the earlier ones lasting 40,000 years. Instead, by starting with the Bible’s history of the Flood and then looking at the evidence from this biblical perspective, we can readily understand both how the Ice Age started and how long it lasted.
“Based on Genesis 10 and 11, we can deduce that for the first 100 years after the Flood, man lived exclusively in the Middle East. After leaving the ark, Noah and his three sons and their wives and their offspring settled and remained in the Tigris-Euphrates River area until the Tower of Babel incident.
“When Noah and his family left the ark, God commanded them to multiply and fill the earth once again (Gen. 9:7). They chose to not spread out from there in disobedience to God. Within a fairly short time, rebellion against God began. It reached a crisis point when the people of Babel built a tower to reach into ‘heaven.’
“The rebellion very likely involved astrology. God judged them by giving them a confusion of language that resulted in their dispersal over the earth. [Look at our Bible Discussion question on Where did the different languages come from?] This happened about 100 to 300 years after the Flood. By then the Ice Age was well underway.
“Many people decided to head southwest and southeast from the warm Tigris-Euphrates Valley (figure 13.2). Those heading southwest settled around the Dead Sea, Palestine, Egypt, the Sahara Desert and the remainder of Africa.
“At that time, the summer climate of the entire area was still cooler and wetter than our present climate. This accounts for the thriving post-Flood civilizations found in areas that are now inhospitable. A few hundred years after the Flood and well into the Ice Age, the Sahara was teeming with life, as witnessed by the remains of aquatic animals and the extensive rock art discovered in the Sahara Desert.
“Other groups headed southeast into India, Southeast Asia, New Guinea, Australia, and eventually to New Zealand and the islands of the western Pacific. The Australian Aborigines would be included in this early group.
Dispersion northwest
“Those that headed northwest had to be hearty. They were migrating toward the Scandinavian ice sheet in northern Europe and northwestern Asia. They probably had no idea that an ice sheet existed when they first headed north, but soon they saw ice caps in the mountains. The volcanic ash and aerosols in the stratosphere made their days a little dark and cold, but game was plentiful.
“It was unlikely they could grow crops because the summers were too cool and the growing season too short, but they probably gathered berries and roots along the way. Large game was a possible factor for them moving farther and farther north. Eventually a few entered the land of the woolly mammoths. Caves were the most practical places to live. Your classic European ‘caveman’ then became a reality, but he was neither brutish nor ape-like. They are known as Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man, were probably of average-or-greater intelligence (being able to survive in a harsh environment), and were not missing links.
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Figure 13.2. Dispersion from the Tower of Babel. (Drawn by Daniel Lewis of AiG-USA.) |
“Neanderthal (or Neandertal) man was once considered a link between apes and humans, but this was because of evolutionary bias. He did have some unusual facial features, but his brain was a little larger than modern man, whose brain averages almost three times the size of an ape brain. That should have spoken volumes to the early evolutionists who are always anxious to find a missing link. Over one hundred skeletons of Neanderthal man have been found in the caves of Europe, western Asia, and northern Africa. Their skeletons from the neck down are almost identical to modern man. Neanderthal man had brow ridges, lacked a chin, and the back of his head extended backwards. These skull features could be either unique genetic features (a result of inbreeding) or caused by disease. Some of their features could have been caused by diseases like rickets and arthritis that some of them were known to possess. Rickets is caused by a lack of vitamin D, which would be a common result of living in caves during the cloudy, bleak days of the Ice Age.
“Cro-Magnon man, who looked as modern as you and I, seemed to follow the Neanderthals into Europe sometime later. They also lived in caves. They, along with the Neanderthals, used stone tools, probably because any metal tools they possessed upon leaving Babel had worn out.
“The Cro-Magnon and Neanderthals very likely intermarried and are included within the Europeans and Asians of today. We find skeletons from the Ice Age period that show a mixture of features from both groups of people.
“Large game would have become scarce during the extinctions at the end the Ice Age, but since summers were becoming warmer, man was able to start planting and harvesting again. He built tribal dwellings, then villages, and then cities. Civilization and agriculture developed rapidly.
“Life in the great Ice Age was only a blip in the life of man in Europe and western Asia. Evolutionary archeologists and anthropologists have thought that the development of agriculture was slow in Europe, but this is very likely due to their evolutionary bias in which man evolved from the apes over millions of years. Some archeologists now are recognizing that agriculture could have developed in Europe rapidly:
“The realization that recent hunter-gatherers can turn to herding and crop cultivation if they perceive this to be advantageous has major implications for studies of agricultural origins in Europe.
Origin of the Native Americans
“Other families left the Tigris-Euphrates Valley heading east and northeast (figure 13.2). They, too, would have been a hardy people, since the continental interior of Asia was relatively cold with ice caps developing in the higher mountains. Those spreading due east were the ancient Oriental tribes who settled in eastern Asia.
“Some of the tribes would have moved northeast into Siberia. Winters were cold in this region, but not nearly as cold as they are today. Game was overwhelmingly abundant. This is where the woolly mammoths lived by the millions. There are quite a number of signs that early man inhabited Siberia, especially southern Siberia. Just recently, archeologists discovered that man lived during the Ice Age along the Yana River in north central Siberia.
[Here is a summary of Dr. Henry M. Morris’ teaching on the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth: “The grandsons and great-grandsons of Noah are listed, each of whom is identified with the city or country established by his descendants.
“Thus, Japheth had seven sons whose names, together with the historic place-names with which they are connected, are as follows: Gomer (Cimmeria, Germany); Magog (Georgia); Madai (Media); Javan (Ionia); Tubal (Tobolsk); Meschech (Muscovy); and Tiras (Thrace). Certain grandsons of Japheth also are listed. It is the Japhethites to whom the designation of Gentiles is particularly given, according to Genesis 10:5.
“The sons of Ham were Cush (whose descendants originally were identified with southern Arabia, but later migrated across the Red Sea and settled Ethiopia); Mizraim (Biblically and secularly identified as Egypt); Phut (probably Libya); and Canaan (the ancestor of the Canaanite nations later partially driven out of Palestine by the Israelites). A son of Cush of special interest is Nimrod, the founder of Babylon and Nineveh, whose exploits will be studied in the next lesson.
“The Children of Shem were: Elam (father of the Elamites, the original inhabitants of Persia); Asshur (ancestor of the Assyrians); Lud (connected with Lydia); Aram (of the Aramaeans, the same as the ancient Syrians); and Arphaxad. The descendants of Arphaxad are listed to the fourth generation, undoubtedly because this was the line destined to lead to Abraham. Quite possibly this Table of Nations was written by Shem himself, with his subscript attached at Genesis 11:10.
“By all these ‘families of the sons of Noah’ were the nations ‘divided in the earth after the flood’ (Genesis 10:32). The division actually took place after the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel (note the reference to different ‘tongues’ [languages] in Genesis 10:5,20,31).
“The respective families of nations then, each in their respective ways, were ordained to implement the prophecy of Noah (9:25-27), thus making their contribution to human society as a whole. Finally, all nations alike were to ‘be fruitful and multiply,’ maintaining law and order under God (Genesis 9:6,7), with the purpose that they all might ‘seek the Lord’ (Acts 17:27).” (.The Genesis Record by Morris)]
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Figure 13.3. The dispersal of man rounding the Bering land bridge and into North America through an ice-free corridor. An alternate coastal route is also shown. |
“Soon some of the nomads reached the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska. Because it was either shallow or dry, they crossed into the New World and became the first Native Americans to reach Alaska. The lowlands of Alaska had mild winters and cool summers at this time. As always, some people would settle down and others would continue migrating. From Alaska, they continued on into the Yukon Territory of northwest Canada and southeast along the east slopes of the Rocky Mountains and down the ice-free corridor (figure 13.3).
“It would have taken most of the Ice Age for there to be enough snow and ice piled up on the land to expose the shallow Bering Strait and shelf for man to walk over to Alaska. This is assuming the current depth of the Bering Strait. There would have been only a narrow window of opportunity to walk by foot into Alaska. Such a time would have occurred near the end of the Ice Age when conditions became colder. Because many animals had already preceded man into North America, I lean toward the option that the Bering Strait was shallower early in the Ice Age and became exposed earlier. Then man and beast would have migrated into North America early in the Ice Age.
“Most Native Americans traveled by land, but it is possible others migrated down the Pacific Coast. They could have built boats, crossed the Bering Strait, and floated along the coasts of Alaska and western British Columbia into Washington State and from there south and east. The waters of the Pacific Ocean would still be warm and the glaciers still would occupy the mountains of British Columbia this early in the Ice Age. Archeologists have uncovered a large ancient garbage dump mostly of fish bones on Heceta Island near Ketchikan, Alaska. A report in Science News states:
“The animal remains show that these people were experienced in offshore fishing and made extensive use of water transportation. . [There was] a relatively mild coastal climate and access to abundant marine food sources would have greatly benefited maritime immigrants, compared with hunters crossing a bitterly cold [ice-free] corridor between massive sheets of ice.
“.Within the post-Flood Ice Age model, the ice-free corridor along the east slopes of the Rocky Mountains would not be nearly as cold in the winter due to Downslope Chinook winds.
“The corridor probably would still be open since it was still early or midway in the Ice Age when the first migrations occurred. Animals had used the corridor earlier, since they started their spread about a few hundred years before man.
“The corridor closed late in the Ice Age as ice sheets from British Columbia and central Canada merged, but there is evidence that the first people probably made it through before closure and not after. One piece of evidence for this lies with the Taber child, found in southern Alberta below 60 feet of glacial till and post-glacial debris. A number of archaeologists have disputed the pre-glacial implication of the Taber child, but its location indicates that it is pre-glacial.
“The first Native Americans, called various names by archeologists, such as Clovis or Folsom man, would have had no difficulty spreading south into southern North America, Central America, and eventually into South America. The journey from the Tigris-Euphrates Rivers to the southern tip of South America did not need to be a grueling journey, as some have envisioned, nor did it need to take a long time.
“If the tribes were nomadic hunters and they averaged two miles a day for only four of the warmest months, they would move at the rate of 250 miles (400 km) a year. The distance to the southern tip of South America is about 15,000 miles (24,000 km). At the rate of 250 miles (400 km) each summer, the people could have made the journey in only 60 years.
“Sixty years is a crude back-of-the-envelope calculation to estimate the minimum time it would take to reach South America. The actual migration would likely have been more complicated and slower. Migration could have happened in spurts. Some tribes could have settled for a while in a location before moving on.
“We know some tribes did settle along the route, such as the Eskimos. Why would the more wandering tribes keep moving? There are many possible reasons, already alluded to before. Some could have simply possessed wanderlust and traveled for the same reason people climb a mountain – because it is there. Others could have been forced to move due to human conflicts of various sorts.
“It could have been the younger generation spreading outward into more promising territory away from their more settled elders. The tribes could have thought hunting would be better farther along, just like the saying “the grass is greener on the other side of the mountain.” Regardless, it need not take much time for people, as well as animals, to populate North and South America.” (By Michael Oard)
(Michael Oard is a retired meteorologist from the National Weather Service. Using his field of expertise and his biblical perspective, he has written numerous articles and authored or co-authored various books, including An Ice Age Caused by the Genesis Floodand The Weather Book .)
Summary of the Mammoths “Apart from formerly glaciated areas, woolly mammoth remains are abundant in the surficial sediments of the mid and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, including western Europe, northern and eastern Asia, Alaska and the Yukon. There are probably millions of mammoths buried in the permafrost of Siberia alone.
“The mammoths are found with a wide variety of other mammals, large and small, many of which were grazers. They lived in a grassland environment with a long growing season, mild winters, very little permafrost, and a wide diversity of plants-quite different from the climate in the region today.
“The mammoths and other animals colonized the region after the Flood during the ice age. The region’s climate during the ice age was ideal for rapid population growth and, in the 600 or so years before their demise, the population had grown to many millions of animals.
“They were buried in the dust storms that deposited the loess blankets found in those regions today. Some were entombed in a standing position. The good state of preservation of the stomach contents does not call for super-rapid freezing of the carcasses. Rather than food digestion, the mammoth stomach acts as a food storage pouch. The mammoths became extinct when, at the end of the ice age, the climate in the region became more continental, with colder winters, warmer summers, and drier conditions…
Frozen carcasses and many thousands of tons of bones and tusks of woolly mammoths are buried in Siberia and Alaska. In March 2000, the Discovery Channel produced a special on the excavation of a carcass in north central Siberia, called the Jarkov mammoth. This mammoth was cut out of the permafrost and transported by helicopter into cold storage for future analysis and possible cloning.
What is a woolly mammoth?
“…woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) is one of several types of mammoths in the genus Mammuthus within the order Proboscidea. The woolly mammoth is essentially a hairy elephant with a large shoulder hump, a sloping back, small ears, tiny tail, unique teeth, a small trunk with a distinctive tip and two finger-like projections, huge spirally curved tusks up to 3.5 meters long, and spiral locks of dark hair covering a silky underfur.
The post-Flood rapid ice age leaves questions for uniformitarians
“Mammoth remains in the northern hemisphere are associated with events during the ice age. However, uniformitarian ice age models cannot explain the mammoths, or even the ice age itself. The August 18-25, 1997, issue of US News & World Report had a long series of articles on eighteen great mysteries of science. One of those mysteries is: ‘What causes ice ages?’…
Mammoth population explosion
“Was there enough time for the mammoth population to increase to millions by the end of the post-Flood ice age? We can estimate the mammoth growth after the Flood by examining the reproductive habits of African elephants, a good analogue.
“The elephant reproductive rate can vary significantly. Elephants do not reach sexual maturity until age 10 to 23.They live 50 to 60 years. Eltringham states that generally, elephants produce a calf at intervals of four to five years with twins 1.35 % of the time.
“However, some have suggested that elephants can give birth every two to three years, and there is a case of a zoo elephant giving birth two years and five months after its first birth. The reproductive rate is especially enhanced in a favorable environment as when the population is low or the animals are being hunted regularly. There are no natural enemies for a mature elephant, except man, but calves are subject to predation. So, mammoths have the potential to increase rapidly following the Flood.
“Based on doubling rates of 10 years and 25 years observed in Africa, there would be (assuming ideal circumstances with no predation or calf mortality) 2.1 million mammoths in 300 years or 8 million mammoths in 550 years, respectively. In other words, there should be no problem for the population of woolly mammoths to reach many millions toward the end of the ice age some 600 years after the Flood.
“The post-Flood rapid ice age would have had milder winters and cooler summers with little if any permafrost, mainly because the Arctic and North Pacific Oceans were warm, and ice-free. It would not have been the formidable landscape observed today or deduced from uniformitarian ice age expectations. Since the lowlands of Beringia were not glaciated, another uniformitarian conundrum, Beringia would have been a favorable environment for many mammals.
Extinction of the mammoths at end of ice age
“Of all the questions related to the mammoths, their extinction has been the most perplexing. It was not only mammoths that became extinct at the end of the ice age, but also many other large animals. Why? We will first discuss their extinction in Siberia and then the extinction of the mammoths and other ice age mammals on whole continents or worldwide.
“The mammoths and many of the other animals went extinct either over the whole world or on continents they once inhabited. This occurred at the end of the ice age and probably into early post-glacial time. The mystery has a reasonable solution within the post-Flood ice age model.
“Carcasses and bones of woolly mammoths in Siberia, Alaska, and the Yukon have been difficult to explain. The mammoth remains are abundant over the mid and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, except in formerly glaciated areas. There are probably millions of them buried in the permafrost of Siberia alone.
“A wide variety of other mammals, large and small, accompanied the mammoth. Many of these animals are grazers, implying that the paleoenvironment of Beringia was a grassland with a wide diversity of plants. This diversity of plants and animals points to a longer growing season with milder winters and very little permafrost.
“This paleoenvironment is contrary to what is observed in Beringia today, with its very cold winters and boggy substrate in summer. Scientists constrained by uniformitarian thinking seem to face conundrum after conundrum in regard to the life and death of the woolly mammoth in Beringia, as well as by the ice age itself.
“A uniformitarian ice age climate would have been even colder still. It is difficult to conceive that the woolly mammoth and all the other animals could have lived in Siberia under these conditions. It is obvious the uniformitarian assumption does not apply.
“Thus, many hypotheses, both creationist and non-creationist, have been proposed. Creationists have been divided on whether the woolly mammoth perished in the Flood or afterwards. A number of creationist hypotheses involve a quick freeze, because it was thought that the state of preservation of the carcasses with only half-decayed vegetation in their stomachs demanded it.
“Reasonable explanations for all these mysteries are available within the context of a unique post-Flood ice age. Astral catastrophes, pole shifts and other such exotic hypotheses are not needed. A quick freeze is also not necessary, and besides, there is much data against the hypothesis.
“There is strong evidence that the woolly mammoth died after the Flood during the ice age. There was enough time for the population of the mammoths to have grown to millions by the end of the ice age. Furthermore, this unique ice age was characterized by colder summers and warmer winters, resulting in a more favorable habitat for the animals in the non-glaciated lowlands of Beringia.
“The animals became extinct at the end of the ice age because the climate changed to a more continental climate, with colder winters and warmer summers, and drier conditions. There is copious data against the hypothesis of a quick freeze. The state of preservation of the stomach contents are better explained by the post-gastric digestive system of elephants in which the stomach is mainly a holding pouch for vegetation.
“The question of how the mammoths died in Beringia can be answered by analyzing the sediments surrounding the mammoths and other animals. They are mostly entombed in yedomas in Siberia and muck in Alaska.
“These are mostly loess and reworked loess. It is postulated that the animals were buried by dust storms, whether they met their demise directly by wind-blown silt or not. The carcasses and other perplexing data associated with the carcasses, such as death by suffocation, entombment while in a standing position, and broken bones, can be explained by death during gigantic dust storms and post-mortem shifting of the permafrost.
Was there a purpose to the Ice Age?
“Some may wonder whether there was a God-ordained purpose for the Ice Age. In other words, did God cause the Ice Age that would have some benefit for man? Or was the Ice Age simply a climatic consequence of the Genesis flood?
“We know the Flood had a purpose. It was to destroy the wickedness of man and start over because “. the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5; NASB).
“That was an extremely bleak situation, and God was forced to take drastic action. The confusion of languages at the Tower of Babel also had a purpose. It was a judgment from God with the goal of causing man to finally fill the earth after the Flood.
“I also believe that God could see where such an ungodly, idolatrous union of people would lead down the road, and it was not good. Any number of evil results could have happened. Many other biblical events can be understood as “coming from God” to fulfill His purpose. What about the Ice Age?
“It is difficult to conclude one way or other whether the Ice Age had a purpose for man. The Ice Age is not mentioned in the Bible; it is a climatic deduction from the biblical event of the Flood. One could think that if such a great event as the Ice Age had a purpose, God would have mentioned it.
“However, the Bible was practically all written after the ice melted. The Book of Job is probably the only book written during the Ice Age. Job does mention snow and ice, but he could have observed such features during winter.
“There are also events not mentioned in the Bible that have a purpose for man. Furthermore, the Ice Age occurred in the far north or in the mountains, far from contact with most people. Therefore, the Ice Age would produce little harm for mankind.
“There are two purposes I would like to suggest. Ice sheets and glaciers grind up the rock to silt size. This silt is called rock flour. While the Ice Age was ending, this rock flour would have been blown all over the world by the strong, dry storms during deglaciation.
“There is even much dust in the Ice Age portion of the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets. The interesting aspect of this wind-blown silt is that it is a very rich soil. A number of places in the world where the wind-blown silt is especially thick are super agricultural areas. These areas include the Midwest of the United States, the Ukraine, and large areas of China.
“Another possible purpose for the Ice Age could have been to aid the repopulating of the earth, as described in this chapter. Mild winters and cool summers, the characteristic of the early and mid Ice Age, would have helped people to migrate across the Sahara Desert, which was much cooler and wetter, and into central and southern Africa.
“Such a climate would have aided man and beasts to migrate into Siberia and pass into North America. On the other hand, mild winters and cooler summers with more precipitation would have made the Tigris-Euphrates area a much more ideal location to live than today. Maybe this is the reason people settled there and did not want to leave.” by Michael Oard
Someone might be asking, how did we get billions of people in just thousands of years so here is an answer for it. “Billions of People in Thousands of Years? By Monty White, Ph.D.
“Creationists are often asked, ‘How is it possible for the earth’s population to reach 6.5 billion people if the world is only about 6,000 years old and if there were just two humans in the beginning?’ Here is what a little bit of simple arithmetic shows us.
One Plus One Equals Billions
“Let us start in the beginning with one male and one female. Now let us assume that they marry and have children and that their children marry and have children and so on. And let us assume that the population doubles every 150 years.
“Therefore, after 150 years there will be four people, after another 150 years there will be eight people, after another 150 years there will be sixteen people, and so on. It should be noted that this growth rate is actually very conservative. In reality, even with disease, famines, and natural disasters, the world population currently doubles every 40 years or so.
“After 32 doublings, which is only 4,800 years, the world population would have reached almost 8.6 billion. That’s 2 billion more than the current population of 6.5 billion people, which was recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau on March 1, 2006. This simple calculation shows that starting with Adam and Eve and assuming the conservative growth rate previously mentioned, the current population can be reached well within 6,000 years.
Impact of the Flood
“We know from the Bible, however, that around 2500 BC (4,500 years ago) the worldwide Flood reduced the world population to eight people. But if we assume that the population doubles every 150 years, we see, again, that starting with only Noah and his family in 2500 BC, 4,500 years is more than enough time for the present population to reach 6.5 billion.
“From two people, created about 6,000 years ago, and then the eight people, preserved on the Ark about 4,500 years ago, the world’s population could easily have grown to the extent we now see it-over 6.5 billion.
“Evolutionists are always telling us that humans have been around for hundreds of thousands of years. If we did assume that humans have been around for 50,000 years and if we were to use the calculations above, there would have been 332 doublings, and the world’s population would be a staggering figure-a one followed by 100 zeros; that is
“10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000.
“This figure is truly unimaginable, for it is billons of times greater than the number of atoms that are in the entire universe! Such a calculation makes nonsense of the claim that humans have been on earth for tens of thousands of years.
“Simple, conservative arithmetic reveals clear mathematical logic for a young age of the earth. From two people, created around 6,000 years ago, and then the eight people, preserved on the Ark about 4,500 years ago, the world’s population could have grown to the extent we now see it-over 6.5 billion.
“With such a population clearly possible (and probable) in just a few thousand years, we could actually ask the question, ‘If humans were around millions of years ago, why is the population so small?’ This is a question that evolution supporters must answer.”
Dr. Monty White is now a young-earth creationist; however, as a young Christian, he believed in theistic evolution. Since 2000, he has been the CEO of Answers in Genesis -UK.
Noah the Evangelist by Paul F. Taylor
“Christians have gleaned many valuable lessons from Noah and the Ark. But one fact is often overlooked. He was the first evangelist mentioned in the Bible. Are there any lessons his life can teach us about how to present the gospel? Absolutely!
“For one, Noah faced the same circumstances that Christians face today.
“As the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.” (Matthew 24:36-39, NKJV).
A Certain Future
“The analogy is very instructive. Just as most people today do not believe Jesus is coming back at all, let alone soon, the people of Noah’s day did not know when the Flood was going to happen. However, they were informed that there was indeed going to be a Flood. Their information came from many sources:
• from the fact that Noah was actually building an Ark
• from the warning of God’s Spirit (Genesis 6:3 says, ” And the Lord said, ‘My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.’ “)
• quite likely, from the words of Noah himself.
“By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.
“Like people today, almost certainly the people of Noah’s day were busy enjoying the pleasures of life and did not believe or care that judgment was coming.
“During the decades of mankind’s last days, Noah was working on the Ark. As it grew, it must have been a potent symbol to those living nearby. One can imagine that Noah was often asked about his construction project. Indeed, it is likely that he was mocked for such an enterprise.
A Silent Preacher and His Faith
“In 2 Peter 2:5, Noah is described as a ‘preacher of righteousness.’ In what way was he a preacher? The Greek word kerux (?????) refers to a herald, or “one who announces.” Even when he wasn’t saying anything, his labor on the Ark would have been his witness. However, some Jewish scholars maintain that Noah did indeed leave some words, too. John Gill, in chapter 22 of the Pirke R. Eliezer , quotes Noah’s words according to Jewish tradition: “Be ye turned from your evil ways and works, lest the waters of the flood come upon you, and cut off all the seed of the children of men.”
“The tradition shows Noah giving both a warning and a means of salvation. If this extra biblical source has any truth in it, then Noah is asking for people to repent, which would certainly fit with his own source of salvation through Christ. Noah was not saved because of his righteousness-at least not in a worldly sense. Hebrews 11 tells us from where Noah’s righteousness came. The Greek word is dikaiosune (d??a??s???), which refers to a form of righteousness that is unattainable by law or by merit.
“Hebrews 11:7 says, ‘By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.’
“This sort of righteousness is found only by faith. The Apostle Paul says elsewhere, ‘For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast’ (Ephesians 2:8-9, NKJV).
“This is exactly how Noah was saved. His righteousness was unattainable; so it could only come by God’s grace, through faith. Genesis 6:8 tells us that ‘Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord’ (NKJV). Noah’s salvation, like ours, was by grace. He could not do anything to attain righteousness for himself.
An Available Safety
“When the door to the Ark was shut, there was room for many more people. All they had to do was repent and turn to God. In the same way, salvation is available to ‘whoever calls on the name of the Lord’ (Romans 10:13, NKJV). Notice that the eight occupants of the Ark entered by a door-and there was only one door-which was not closed by Noah, but by God-‘the Lord shut him in’ (Genesis 7:16, NKJV). Jesus said, ‘I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved’ (John 10:9, NKJV).”
Compiled by Gary T. Panell
Download this article as a PDF: A Christian Worldview Part 5
I see you don’t address Gen 6:4. It clearly states what happened. Angels tasked with watching over humans became attracted to the beautiful women of the earth. These angels left their heavenly abode to procreate with women. The result was giants who were wicked & tainted human DNA which God could not allow to be apart of Jesus. Since by the time of Noah most humans were contaminated God “reset” humanity with pure human blood lines. The punishment to these sinful angels was so great as to insure this would never happen again.
What you teach is the same narrow view I was taught as a child and it’s wrong as man has always been wicked. But to distroy all living things on earth there was more than mans wickedness there was something much more evil…change in the DNA from God’s original creation. This could not stand.
I have covered Gen. 6:4 in great detail in Part 4 & 5 of the Christian World view. Here it is: (6:4) “giants” These “giants” were the monstrous progeny of the demon-possessed men and women whose illicit activities led to God’s warning of imminent judgment. The Hebrew word is nephilim (“fallen ones”), a term possibly relating to the nature of their spiritual “parents,” the fallen angels. That they were also physical giants is evident from the fact that the same word is later used in connection with the giants in Canaan at the time of Joshua (Numbers 13:33) and by the fact that the word here was translated in the Septuagint by the Greek word gigantes.
(6:4) “also after that” “After that” clearly refers to Numbers 13:33 and probably represents an editorial insertion in Noah’s record by Moses. These giants in Canaan may also have had demonically-controlled parents; they were also known as the Anakim, the sons of Anak.
(6:4) “daughters of men” The idea that these “daughters of men” were actually descendants of Cain, and the “sons of God” descendants of Seth has been a widely held Christian naturalistic interpretation. This was not the intended meaning of the writer, however, who could certainly have written that the male descendants of Seth began to take wives from the daughters of Cain if that were his meaning.
The descendants of Seth were not “sons of God” (most of them perished in the Flood) and the female descendants of both Cain and Seth were certainly “daughters of men” (literally, daughters of Adam). Besides, Adam had many other sons in addition to Cain and Seth. Further, even though intermarriage between believers and unbelievers is wrong, it could not in itself have produced universal wickedness and violence.
(6:4) “men of renown” The antediluvian giants had, by the time of Moses, become renowned heroes of antiquity, as far as the world was concerned. They, like their parents, were probably demon-controlled. Their gigantic stature was engineered by genetic manipulations. They could not have been demi-gods (half man, half “god”), however, as ancient mythology claims, since such imaginary beings are beyond the pale of God’ creative purposes.
Fallen angels are not prospects for salvation whereas fallen men and women are. A half-angel, half-human being would be an impossible anomaly in terms of soteriology. The only apparent solution to all the problems posed by these verses is demon possession of both parents and progeny, not demonic marriage or procreation.” (Taken in whole from The Defender’s Study Bible by Dr. Henry M. Morris.)
While I believe Dr. Morris very aptly presented the view of some Christians in the past and today, I still have to disagree with some of his conclusions. The main disagreement I have with this view is that it is clearly in opposition to the statement from our Lord Jesus Christ Himself about angels. By the way, this verse was not addressed in the above view, but Jesus says in no uncertain terms, “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven.” (Matthew 22:30)
Since this verse is very clearly teaching that angels do not have sex, probably not even the ability to do so, how is it that they could have sexual intercourse with women before the flood? Herein lies the main fallacy of the above view, plus the fact that these giants are in other places in the Bible, like the one who fought David.
It was one of the hardest things that I every had to get use to at Bible School, and that was when there were different views presented. Basically growing up in a Christian home and church we usually got only one view presented to us. So this was quite a change to have to think for myself, and like Paul said, examine Scripture to see if what we are being taught agrees with the rest of Scripture. In this case these are “born again” Bible believing Christians that love the Lord with all their hearts and have done much to spread the gospel that believe this view. This however, does not mean that they are always right. Nor am I always right, but in this case there are some things that were overlooked that may shed some light on the subject.
Here is what I believe Scripture is teaching us, and that is there were two different groups of people on the earth at the beginning, those who worshiped God and those who did not. Then as a result of temptation by fallen angels (demons) the whole human race fell into sin, except for Noah and his family. We will see how demons enticed men and women to breed themselves like animals to become large and mean warrior types, with no concern for obeying God and their conscience.
It is impossible for the “sons of God” in Genesis six to be angels because angels do not marry. This is not just what I am saying; this is what Jesus said in no uncertain terms, again He said: “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.” (Luke 20:34-36) So in this passage of Scripture Jesus lets us know that there is no way the “sons of God” in Genesis six are angels. (Jesus may even be correcting this misunderstanding about the sin of people before the Flood.)
Another thing, fallen angels, or demons as we call them often, are never called “sons of God.” At one time they were sons of God, but when they fell all at the same time with Lucifer, who took a third of them with him they were no longer called “sons of God.” “And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” (Revelation 12:7-9)
Yes, it is true that there are other references in the Old Testament that use this same phrase “sons of God”, but it is always referring to holy angels, not fallen ones. Notice in the above Scripture they are called angels, not “sons of God” after they were cast out of heaven. However in this same verse 36 of Luke it calls believers “sons of God.” Why should the New Testament be off limits when interpreting Old Testament Scripture? I realize it is in a different language, but believers are still called “sons of God.”
“Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.” (Job 1:6) Notice the holy angels are called “sons of God,” and “Satan also came among them.” It does not say the sons of God and Satan was with them; it makes a distinction between the two. Satan was not in the group of the “sons of God.” Dr. Thiessen comments on this in his Lectures in Systematic Theology. On his discussion of angels here is what he says, “Five times angels are called “sons of God” in the Old Testament (Genesis 6:2, 4; Job 1:6; 21; 38:7); but never do we read of the “sons of angels.”
The reference in Genesis 6:2 probably intends to protest against the intermarriage of the godly line of Seth with the ungodly line of Cain; for there seems to be no distinction of sex among the angels. The word “angel” in Scripture is always in the masculine gender; but this is also the gender of beings in whom there is no sexual distinction.
Because they are a company and not a race, they sinned individually, and not in some head of the race. It may be that because of this fact God has made no provision of salvation for the fallen angels. In Hebrews 2:16 we read: “For verily not to angels doth he give help, but he giveth help to the seed of Abraham.” Strong says: “Christ could join himself to humanity by taking the common nature of all. There was no common nature of angels which he could take.” (Lectures in Systematic Theology by Henry Clarence Thiessen)
This idea that the angels married people is from ancient myths. These myths may have been stories of demons, and it is possibly where the Greeks got the idea about the gods marring people. Also, there is the apocryphal book of Enoch, that some suggest we should believe, but are we to place our faith and trust in apocryphal books and myths of men over the clear teaching of the word of God?! Here is what Enoch said, according to this apocryphal book, some put their trust in:
“It happened after the sons of men had multiplied in those days, that daughters were born to them, elegant and beautiful (Gen. 6:1-2). And when the angels, the sons of heaven, beheld them, they became enamored of them, saying to each other: Come, let us select for ourselves wives from the progeny of men, and let us beget children.Whose stature was each three hundred cubits. [This would be about 450 feet tall.]* Comment G.T. Panell
These devoured all which the labor of men produced; until it became impossible to feed them; when they turned themselves against men, in order to devour them; and began to injure birds, beasts, reptiles, and fishes, to eat their flesh one after another, and to drink their blood.” (The Book of Enoch from the Ethiopic, chapter 7) Does that sound like the truth to you or a myth?! These people were well over 400 feet tall according to the story, sounds a bit like Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, even more fantastic!
Josephus is mentioned as another proof reference of some who say that angels married people. But he may not even have been a believer, and sometimes he just repeats stories that were believed to be true, but had no basis in fact. Here is his story of before the Flood and what happened:
“Now this posterity of Seth continued to esteem God as the Lord of the universe, and to have an entire regard to virtue, for seven generations; but in process of time they were perverted, and forsook the practices of their forefathers, and did neither pay those honours to God which were appointed them,
.they now shewed by their actions a double degree of wickedness, whereby they made God to be their enemy; for many angels of God accompanied with women, and begat sons that proved unjust, and despisers of all that was good, on account of the confidence they had in their own strength, for the tradition is that these men did what resembled the acts of those whom the Grecians call giants.” (Josephus) His is more believable, but still gives only a made up story, that had been passed down by Jews. This still goes against the clear teaching of Scripture, that angels do not marry or have intercourse, let alone children!
This is not just what I am saying, but also many other fine, born again Christian teachers with excellent reputations for teaching sound doctrine, here is what Dr. C. I. Scofield has to say about this subject:
Some hold that the “sons of God” were fallen angels “who kept not their first estate” (Jude 6-7, cp. “even as Sodom and Gomorrah”; 2 Peter 2:4-9. Accordingly, this intrusion into the human sphere produced a race of wicked giants (Genesis 6: 4-6). Others hold that since angels are spoken of in a sexless way (cp. Matthew 22:30), and that the words “took them wives” signifies a lasting marriage, the reference has to do with the breakdown of the separation of the godly line of Seth by intermarriage with the godless line of Cain.
A refinement of the latter view holds that the expression “sons of God” refers to all the godly, and “daughters of men” to all the ungodly, irrespective of their natural paternity. Whichever view is held, it is obvious that Satan attempted so to corrupt the race that the Messiah could not come to redeem man. But God salvaged a remnant (Gen. 6: 8 ff.), and a godly line was preserved. However, there is no remedy for rebellion against God; the judgment predicted by Noah’s ancestor fell (Jude 14-15; cp. Gen. 7:11; Isaiah 1:2-7, 24-25) (New Scofield Reference Edition by C. I. Scofield)
So far, we understand now, that the godly line of Seth “sons of God” intermarried with the godless line of Cain “daughters of men.” “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?
For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said:I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty.” (2 Corinthians 6:14-18)
“What then produced the violence, wickedness and abnormalities of the people described in Genesis 6? What is the resolution to solve this situation? It is quite simple, the children were all fully human offspring of truly human parents. Their parents were entirely human, but humans who were freely willing to be recruited, directed and controlled by fallen angels who were manipulating them for Satan’s benefit. Satan cannot create, but he can manipulate that which already exists and he can counterfeit the things of Gods’ creation.
“Satan can see the genetic makeup of people, and he knows which ones have the genetic material necessary to produce large stature. Then just like a dog breeder, he can cause willing humans to “breed” in order to produce people of greater and greater size. His plan was to corrupt totally the human line in order to prevent the birth of the sinless Son of God.
“Satan and the fallen angels would, as part of their schemes, want to corrupt the human population, so as to prevent the birth of the Promised One, as prophesied by Lamech in Genesis 5:29.
“One element concerning the nature of the sinful actions of these fallen angels was that they compounded their sin. These angels left “their own habitation” or “first estate”; they not only tried to cause people to sin, but they actually attempted ancient genetic engineering of the human race. (Jude 6,7) For this double crime they are now confined in Tartarus awaiting final judgment. (. II Peter 2:4)
“And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day.” (Jude 6-7) “For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell (Tartarus) and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly.” (2 Peter 2:4-5)
“Giants” (nephilim)
“Gigantism is common among plants and animals in the fossil record. The root word for “giants” (nephilim) is naphal which means “fall” and refers to the fallen state of their demonic heritage. The LXX translated the word into Greek using gigantes. The same word is used of the giants seen in Canaan. (Numbers 13:33)
“These giants’ physical stature is easily explained by simple known principles of the laws of genetics using mutations and recombinations of human genetic information. The wide variation for size in humans has existed from the time of creation within the human gene pool.
“Gigantism may occur by fortuitous random combinations or by controlled genetic manipulation, that is, guided breeding. If human intellect can manipulate genetic material today; then demonic forces could just as easily have done the same thing in the past. This would have been achieved through their recruitment of willing humans to determine which persons mated with another to achieve the desired result-giants. This is simply ancient genetic engineering.
“Mighty men of old, men of renown”
“These giants were men who were revered for their great strength and great violence, not necessarily for their great knowledge or intellect. The words “mighty” and “renowned” do not necessarily mean good but can mean bad. Here these words are used with acute satire. These men were “mighty” and “renowned” for their evil and their wickedness. (Genesis 6:5)
“Wickedness is at its greatest when the most notorious of sinners are “men of renown.” Men in the Mafia are also mighty men, men of renown. There is a corollary which would be, “Wickedness is great when great men are wicked.” (All of this is taken directly from Creation: Our World View by Dr. Grady S. McMurtry whom I had the privilege to meet at Teen Missions International, a wonderful man of God. I did not give the first part of his view, since I disagreed with it, however, the rest of the book is excellent and I highly recommend it.)
It should not be that hard to believe that people can become very tall or large. We have the record of (also videos) Robert Wadlow who was eight feet eleven inches tall and he lived in recent times. David fought a giant called Goliath; you can find the history in 1 Samuel 17. He had other relatives that were as tall as Goliath as well. “Now it happened afterward that war broke out at Gezer with the Philistines, at which time Sibbechai the Hushathite killed Sippai, who was one of the sons of the giant. And they were subdued.
Again there was war with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. Yet again there was war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, with twenty-four fingers and toes, sixon each hand and six on each foot; and he also was born to the giant. So when he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea, David’s brother, killed him. These were born to the giant in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.” (1 Chronicles 20:4-8)
I am told that in Africa today there are tribes of very tall people. So it is not hard to believe that through enticement from demons people could breed themselves and come up with giants. As hard as it is to believe this happened, it shouldn’t be, but sometimes similar things happen today.
To give a personal story, I worked at a restaurant at one time, and one day I was visiting with a female employee who said she wanted to breed herself. (She did not use those exact words, of course, but that is what it amounted to.) She explained that she was not interested in marriage, but she would like to get pregnant by a football player, because she wanted to raise a boy who would become a football champion.
You may think that we would never do the immoral things they did before the Flood, but that is just not true. Today, we have such things as sperm banks, and so on. Hitler had his “volunteers” for his “super race” breeding program. There is another sin that was prevalent before the Flood, that is also prevalent today, and that is violence. We see around the world violence on the increase more and more everyday. So God will have to judge our generation too, for its many sins!
One of the biggest causes of this entire break down in righteousness was the breakdown of the family. You will have to admit we see this happening again before our eyes. In the days before the Flood people got their eyes off of the LORD and onto the things of the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. “For all that is in the world-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life-is not of the Father but is of the world.” (1 John 1:16)
The sons of God took wives for the wrong reasons. They did not care about marrying believers any longer, this was in clear violation of their consciences and God’s instructions. This is why believers are not to marry unbelievers, and we looked at these verses earlier from 2 Corinthians 6:14-18, but let me remind you of one very important verse out of that passage. “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” (2 Corinthians 614)
I see you don’t post people’s comments. Don’t blame you.
I do allow the comments to be put at the end of the article. Your comments are put after the article, just scroll down after the end of the article you were reading. I want to answers your questions that you have about Gen. 6:4. I will write you when I get a chance. Thanks for your comments. Brother, Gary