Noah--Looking back from today (Part I).

This subject is difficult. Talking about a worldwide flood sounds very strange. Many people can accept the idea of mankind descending from two earlier human ancestors--although there's disagreement where those ancestors came from. But when you raise the idea of a global flood you find yourself patted on the shoulder as a believer in myths:

While some scholars have offered possible explanations for the origins of the flood myth including a legendary retelling of a possible Black Sea deluge, the general mythological exaggeration and implausibility of the story are widely recognized by relevant academic fields. The acknowledgement of this follows closely the development of understanding of the natural history and especially the geology and paleontology of the planet ("Genesis flood narrative." Wikipedia.).

 I will grant that a global flood is not something anyone living has seen.


"The Flood?" Answers in Genesis. 2016. Web. March 5, 2016.


With no one living to tell the tale, I'll turn again to present-day facts and widespread beliefs:

• No worldwide flood in modern, accepted history
• This requires no specific sources.
• Genesis 9:11, "'I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth.'"

• The rainbow, broadly visible to both man and beast following rainstorms
•  This requires no specific sources.
• Genesis 9:12-15, "God said, 'This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations; I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. It shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud, and I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh.'"

• Giants (i.e. very tall people, often of great strength, some with more than the normal number of toes/fingers)
• Robert Wadlow, native of Illinois, reached 8 ft 11.1 in.
• Anna Swan, Canadian, reached 7 ft 6 in.
• Pranamya Menaria and Devendra Harne, Indian, having 25 total fingers & toes.
• Andre the Giant (a.k.a. the giant "Fezzik" in The Princess Bride movie), French, was a wrestler and reached 7 ft 4 in.
• Jorge Gonzales, Argentinian, was the tallest World Wrestling Federation member, reaching 7 ft 7in.
• Genesis 6:4, "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown."
• Numbers 13:32-33, "So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, 'The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.'"
• II Samuel 21:20-21, "There was war at Gath again, where there was a man of great stature who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number; and he also had been born to the giant. When he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimei, David’s brother, struck him down."

• Multicultural accounts of a great flood similar to Noah's
• Escape in an ark/chest:
• Masai (East Africa)
• Altaic (Asia)
• Flood covering the mountains:
• Altaic (Asia)
• Tuvinian (Asia) 
• Salish (North America)
• Survival of only a few people and pairs of animals:
• Altaic (Asia)
• Tuvinian (Asia) 
• Eskimo
• Salish (North America)
• Sending out a bird/animal to discover if the waters had subsided:
• Masai (East Africa)
• Genesis 7:13-20, "On the very same day Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark, they and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, all sorts of birds. So they went into the ark to Noah, by twos of all flesh in which was the breath of life. Those that entered, male and female of all flesh, entered as God had commanded him; and the LORD closed it behind him. Then the flood came upon the earth for forty days, and the water increased and lifted up the ark, so that it rose above the earth. The water prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered."

• Ability of ancients to build large boats

"How large was Noah's Ark?" Answers in Genesis. 2016. Web. March 5, 2016.

• The Leontifera and a 420 ft long later model
• Chinese junks over 400 ft long
• Egyptian ship made of cedar around 450 ft long
• Genesis 6:14-16, "'Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you shall make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. You shall make a window for the ark, and finish it to a cubit from the top; and set the door of the ark in the side of it; you shall make it with lower, second, and third decks.'"

Conservatively, if 1 cubit = ~1.5 ft (from fingertip to elbow of a man's arm):

• Length = 300 cubits = ~450 ft
• Breadth = 50 cubits = ~75 ft
• Height = 30 cubits = ~45 ft

• Worldwide fossil beds
• Essentially no need for a specific source. Here is one general reference.
• Genesis 6:17, "'Behold, I, even I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall perish.'"

• Rapid Fossilization
• Fossilization largely occurs when animal/creature/plant is buried in mud, quickly enough to avoid complete decay.
• Rapid petrifaction of wood with volcanic eruption.
• Fossilization of soft tissue: "The Medusa Effect"

But specimens where no phosphate could be seen still yielded small pieces of phosphatized soft tissue.Tissue types so far recovered include muscle fibres with banding present (Fig.6). Some muscle fibres display ultrastructure and show fibrils and even cell nuclei arranged in neat rows (Fig.7). Underneath the scales small pieces of dermis (skin) are preserved and show thin sheets of muscle and connective tissue. A female Notelops had ovaries with developing eggs inside, and one egg even had phosphatized yolk.

Martill, David M. "The Medusa effect: instantaneous fossilization." Geology Today (1989): 203. Web. Feb. 5, 2016. 

• 80-day mineralization of plants: "Understanding fossilization: Experimental pyritization of plants"
• Genesis 7:11-8:5, "In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened. The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights . . . Then the flood came upon the earth for forty days, and the water increased and lifted up the ark, so that it rose above the earth . . . In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat. The water decreased steadily until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains became visible."

 

Has the Genesis account of creation endured? (Gen. 1:11-30)

(Quotations of Scripture are taken from the New American Standard version)

Gen. 1:11, "Then God said, 'Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them . . .'"

• Yes, we do still see seed-bearing plants.
• Yes, excluding algae, kelp, and a few others (whose seed-bearing, plant nature may be questioned), all seed-bearing plants I can think of must grow on land, or very near land. We don't see subterranean, wind-borne, or oceanic "islands" of seed-bearing plants. 
• Yes, I watch, and see that a grass seed grows into a grass plant, a bean seed grows into a bean plant, and a pine tree seed grows into a pine tree. If not, seed companies would be non-existent or need really good insurance, and gardeners would be extremely frustrated--said from the viewpoint of a past avid gardener.

Gen. 1:14-16, "Then God said, 'Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years'; God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also."

• Yes, we still have only two great lights: the sun and the moon.

[(12/21/2015) Just realized I accidentally skipped part of these verses.

• Yes, the lights of heaven have repeatedly served as signs (Strong's 226: "signal, flag, beacon"): 2 Kings 20:9 (King Hezekiah); Matt. 2:2 (Christ's birth); Luke 23:45 (Christ's death); and navigation by the sun, moon, planets, and 58 navigational stars.
• Yes, the sun, by the earth's orbit, still governs the seasons of summer, fall, winter, and spring.
• Yes, man still notes the passing of days by the appearance of the sun and moon.
• Yes, man still notes the passing of years by the earth's orbit around the sun.

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• Yes, the greater light, the sun, dominates the daytime sky--repelling darkness (excepting extremes like the North Pole, South Pole, and eclipses).
• Yes, the lesser light, the moon, dominates the night sky--without dispelling the darkness of night.

Gen. 1:20-22, "Then God said, 'Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.' God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind . . . God blessed them, saying, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.'"

• Yes, the bodies of water on the earth certainly "teem" with living creatures.
• Yes, the birds, or flying creatures, are still seen in the sky.
• Yes, whales, fish, jellyfish, etc. only fill the seas. They die if brought out of water.
• Yes, the flying creatures do not multiply on the oceans, but rather nest or roost on the land.

Gen. 1:24-25, "Then God said, 'Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind' . . . "

• Yes, apart from the flying creatures and the creatures of the seas, we see many land-bound animals.

Gen. 1:26, "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'"

• Yes, man stands out pretty distinct from the rest of creation. Man has unique creativity, fabricating increasingly sophisticated dwellings, machinery, and means of recording/exchanging knowledge (books, electronics, TV, wifi, etc.)
• Yes, man does exercise rule over all living creatures, whether fish, bird, or beast of the earth. We have fishermen, whalers, livestock owners, birders, and hunters (of bird and beast).

Gen. 1:28, "God blessed them; and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth . . .'"

• Yes, man has multiplied greatly all across the globe.
• Yes, man still calls the the land home (i.e. homelands, not home-waters or home-airs).

Gen. 1:29-30, "Then God said, 'Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food'; and it was so."

• Yes, I dare not try to number or name all the seed-bearing plants and fruit-bearing trees we harvest for food.
• Yes, every green plant I know of is kept in check by the voracious appetites of various animals (including the small creeping animals/insects/bugs/small creatures) and flying creatures.

. . . Well, that was a little longer than expected.