A Sensible Perspective On Noah's Flood
There is probably no issue that turns away as many secular people from belief in the Bible as the manner in which the flood of Noah is treated in traditional religious circles. The traditional religious interpretation of that story should make any thinking person question because it is simply not credible. The traditional explanation of the flood story has been handled so badly it is little wonder that it is so widely rejected. There are many issues raised, but the two most glaring problems relate to the mechanics of the flood as well as the racial makeup of the world in ancient times as well as today.
Mind you, I am not saying that the biblical account is beyond belief. I am saying that the traditional interpretation is not an accurate picture of the story in the text. I have a great deal of confidence in the Bible account of Noah's flood, but I have to chuckle at some of the information that comes out of religious circles about it. So please understand that what I am going to relate to you is not what you would hear in some Sunday School story. It is rather my attempt at making real sense of the Biblical account by carefully analyzing the text and reconciling that with what we can observe in the real world and in history.
I have been studying the story for much of my life and I think I have arrived at a pretty clear understanding of the episode. I have tried to get at the real truth, taking into consideration the physical sciences and the realities of history. The correct answer has to be consistent with all three. The issue is not whether God could have performed an act totally outside the laws of the physical world. I intend to show that there is really no reason for Him to have done so. What I write here is my current understanding, but a subject as complex as this always justifies keeping an open mind.
The Flood tradition exists around the world
I would begin by noting that the tradition of a great flood does not exist only in the pages of the Bible. It persists in over 600 cultures and traditions around the world. Author Charles Burlitz published a book in 1987 entitled The Lost Ship of Noah, in which he documents an extensive catalog of information relating to the flood. It has one of the best collections of such flood traditions as well as a great deal of other information about the flood. I have drawn heavily on his book as well as Halleys Handbook of the Bible for the flood traditions listed below. The following are some of the better known flood stories from a great variety of cultures:
There is the remarkable epic of Gilgamesh story that tells of a hero who escaped a worldide flood with many parallels to the Genesis story.
The Koran, in Sura 7, tells of Allah sending "Noah unto his people... I fear for you for the retribution of an awful day...We saved him and those with him in the ship, and we drowned those who denied our token."
The Popul Vuh, the holy book of the Quiche Maya, tells of a great flood through which the Mayan ancestors came to the western hemisphere.
The ancient Egyptians had a legend that the gods had purified the earth by a great flood. Only a few shepherds escaped. In another legend, Surid, a pre- dynastic king was warned of a flood in a dream. He built the two greatest of the Pyramids, recording the secret sciences, the positions of the stars, and all that was known of arithmetic and geometry on their walls. Curiously, the outer casings of the pyramids were removed long ago, and the queen's chamber of Khufu's pyramid shows a curious high water mark inside.
In Greek tradition, Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha were warned that the gods would bring a great flood. They built a great boat and escaped with their family. The boat rested on Mt. Parnassus. He sent out a dove twice. They flung stones over their heads which became new men and women.
Old Persian traditions speak of a hero named Yima who carefully screened a thousand couples in good health and of good habits to share his three story deep "vara" or bunker lined with clay and equipped with underground streets while fires, floods, and earthquakes ravaged the earth.
The great flood in Welsh epics, was known as The Third Catastrophe of Briton. The survivors were Dyfwan and Dyfwach.
The Icelandic Edda speaks of heaven splitting in two, and the sun and the stars disappearing as the earth sinks into the sea and massive fires rage.
In Chinese tradition, Fa-He, the founder of Chinese civilization, escaped a great flood when man rebelled against heaven. His wife and three sons and three daughters escaped with him.
The Druids of England had a legend of a righteous patriarch whose descendants repeopled the earth after it was destroyed in a great flood.
Polynesians have flood legends from which there were eight survivors.
Mexicans record that one man and his family were saved in a ship when the earth was destroyed by a flood.
In Peruvian legend, many years before the Incas, one man and one woman escaped in a box that floated in the flood waters. In another legend six people survived on a float.
The Mechoachans believed that a single family escaped a flood with sufficient animals to replenish the new world.
In Cuba there persists a legend about an old man who escaped a flood in a great ship.
In Tahiti, The supreme God became very angry and dragged the earth through the sea, but their island broke off and was saved.
In Persian legend, Ahiran the evil one corrupted the world and it was destroyed by raindrops the size of a bulls head.
In the Scandinavian Edda, the oceans of the earth are the blood of the great giant Ymir who was slain by the early gods. All were drowned except a man and woman who escaped in a bark.
In the legends of the Brazilians there are accounts of a worldwide flood.
American Indians have various legends in which 1, 3, or 8 people were saved from a flood in a boat on a high mountain.
The Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters and White Bear, tells of great cities and civilizations that ended because "when the people had what they wanted, they wanted more still and wars began." finally cities were destroyed by a weapon called patuwvotas (possibly some kind of bomb) in wars that culminated when the lands and the sea changed places destroying everything.
A similar story occurs in the Hindu Mahabarata, with a chilling and vivid account of ancient war between the gods. A dreadful bomb called the Thunderbolt of Death or the Iron Thunderbolt exploded with the brightness of ten thousand suns killing thousands of the enemy with billowing death clouds, spreading upward and opening like giant parasols, sucking upward into its center soldiers, chariots, horses, and elephants. It left burned, unrecognizable corpses in its wake. Survivors were horribly burned and disfigured. Their hair and nails fell out and their skin decayed away. Food was contaminated and the people needed to wash themselves in a flowing stream.
Later, it tells of Manu, who alone built a ship and escaped a great flood, landing on Mt. Hivamet in northern India. And in another legend, an evil demon stole the sacred books from Brahma and corrupted the whole land except seven Nishis and Satyavrata, who were visited by the god Vishnu and who warned them to escape a coming flood in a miraculous vessel.
A legend from Greenland says the earth once tilted over. All were drowned except a man and a woman who repeopled the earth.
Among the Tamanacs & Maypures and the Indians of Rio Erevato in South America are legends of the "age of water" when a man and a woman saved themselves on a mountain called Tamanacu on the banks of the Asiveru River. They cast fruits from a palm tree that became the men and women who repeopled the earth.
Though these legends vary and conflict and some are obviously mythologized, the one theme in common is a great flood from which a few people escape. With such widespread occurrence of a common theme it is difficult to simply pan the notion of a worldwide flood.
The Problem of Science
A full analysis of the flood event should first involve the physical and historical factors of the flood itself. Traditional religionists quote Genesis 7:18-20,
"and the waters prevailed and were increased greatly upon the earth... and all the mountains were covered."
Usually, this is told as if the entire planet just slowly disappeared under a blanket of water over a period of 40 days, until all the land masses were totally immersed. I can show that the flood did not simply fill the entire planet full of water like a bathtub, leaving no landmass uncovered. Nothing could be further from the truth. A thinking person can see that if that was what happened, all of that water would still be there. Why? Because there would be no place for it to go. Human beings could not survive here. Contrary to popular religious thought, that is not what is described in the pages of Genesis when read in the Hebrew.
So what really happened?
The English rendering sounds as if the mountains were totally immersed in water. However the Hebrew word vay-cusoo, which is usually translated as "covered", shows the true meaning. It's meaning is not to immerse. It literally means to conceal. What happens to distant mountains when rain moves in? The mountains become invisible, or concealed due to atmospheric conditions. This is what Genesis 7:18 is describing. It is noteworthy in this passage because this was probably a new phenomenon to the people of Noah's day. The atmospheric/weather paradigm before the flood was very different than today. This phenomenon had probably never happened before, because "The Lord God had not yet caused it to rain upon the earth" Gen 2:5. Once that passage is understood, there is nothing in the scriptures that requires us to insist that the entirety of the planet was submerged in water simultaneously.
The massive violence and destruction of the flood in the text is not often appreciated. Hebrew often uses repetition to express superlative, or very intense action. The Hebrew here uses extreme superlative language to describe the action of the flood waters. In Genesis 7:17 we read Vay-yigbroo hamayim" - The waters grew strong. In the next verse, Vay-yigbroo hamayim Vay-irboo meod - The waters grew stronger and grew much. And still more intensity in the following verse; " the expression Vay-yigbroo hamayim Vay-yigbroo meod meod means the waters strengthened and strengthened greatly, very greatly (much-much). And one more time in verse 24 we read Vay-yigbroo hamayim - The waters strengthened. With all these yigbroo's and meods, this probably the most intense language in all the Bible. In Hendrickson's Interlinear Hebrew-Aramaic Old Testament, it renders verse 19 "And the Waters were strong, exceedingly violent on the earth." Can there be any doubt that this describes an unbelievably destructive event.
To add to the destruction, we are told in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 108b) that the rain was scalding hot - certainly not a typical rainstorm, but a cosmic catastrophe. The account of the flood in Jasher 6 presents a vivid picture of great havoc.
"And all the sons of men that were left upon the earth, became exhausted through evil on account of the rain, for the waters were coming more violently upon the earth. (v. 16)"
Even the occupants of the ark had a very rough time.
"And the ark floated upon the face of the waters, and it was tossed upon the tidewaters so that all the living creatures within were turned about like pottage in a cauldron. And great anxiety seized all the living creatures that were in the ark, and the ark was like to be broken.And all the living creatures that were in the ark were terrified, and the lions roared, and the oxen lowed, and the wolves howled, and every living creature lamented in its own language so that their voices reached a great distance, and Noah and his sons cried and wept in their troubles; they were greatly afraid that they had reached the gates of death." (v. 29-30)
Undoubtedly the flood was the greatest cosmic catastrophe in historic times. And something else is shown in the Hebrew text that does not find its way into our English versions. Even as the rain diminished, the Hebrew suggests that flood had a sweeping action - probably a vast mega-destructive tidal wave that swept away whole civilizations in the wake of the great cosmic and geological upheaval that was taking place. The term haloch vashoav in verse 3, uses two absolute infinitives as an adverbial phrase, means going and retreating. It was not just a continual receding, but rather a repetitive going and receding, suggesting the action of a violent sweeping tidal wave of immense proportions.
It was undoubtedly a worldwide phenomenon, the greatest disaster of all time, nearly wiping out all of mankind. But in all this it did not completely inundate all areas of the planet simultaneously.
Where Did The Water Come From?
At this point we might speculate a little about what was the cause and the source of all of this water. Several scholars have surmised that some kind of watery shroud or vapor canopy once surrounded the earth, and that it suddenly became unstable and collapsed. Isaac N. Vail championed this view and wrote a number of treatises which he collected in his book, Waters Above The Firmament published in the nineteenth century. Some of his notions seem quaint today, but it is worth reading. The problem is that there is no known model in the solar system of such a planetary canopy, and the physics of it cannot be proven.
There exists, however, a model of a similar notion that can be proven. In fact, several known examples exist in our own solar system. But these were mostly unknown in Isaac Vails day. We now know that all the larger planets have water in the form of ice that is suspended over these planets in the form of planetary rings. In fact it seems almost normal for planets to have rings, but this was unknown before the era of space exploration in the last few decades. By observation we have seen that only the smaller planets do not have rings. One might draw a reasonable conclusion that the size of the planet may have something to do with whether it has rings or not.
So at what size could we expect rings to barely be stable? Note that all the planets smaller than Earth (Mars and Mercury and Pluto) have no rings. All the planets larger than Earth have rings.
The case of Venus perhaps confuses the issue. Venus is only slightly smaller than the earth. It is probably an anomaly in that It does not fit the usual pattern. Venus rotates around its axis in the opposite direction of all the other planets with the notable exception of Uranus, which has its own set of anomolistic features as well. Venus has much different characteristics than others in the vicinity and others of the same size range. It is much hotter, brighter. It apparently did not come into being in the same manner as the other planets. It is likely that it was captured by our solar system at a much later time. Therefore, we remove it from our model. This emphasizes the planet Earth as sitting on the apparent size boundary between planets with, and those without, rings. Curiously, it also sits at the approximate distance boundary from the sun, at which the planets with rings orbit (all except Pluto which is thought to be an escaped moon of Neptune.)
I think it is likely that the Earth had rings before the flood. A curious passage in the Book of Job refers to God creating the earth with a sort of swaddling band of thick darkness around it. (Job 38:9) Could this describe a primeval ring system? He mentions it in context with the sea and the clouds - also water. It is likely that the rings became unstable and suddenly collapsed, sending a tremendous volume of water to the surface. Why did this happen? The short answer is, of course, that God caused it to happen, but there may have been a mechanism that He used to trigger it.
Some few historians put forth the notion of catastrophism as a major factor in many of the great events of early historical times. Writers such as Immanuel Velikowsky and Donald W. Patten have explored such notions at length. They and others believe that there is evidence of near collisions of planet and asteroid sized bodies in our solar system that reach into historical times. Such events as the Great Flood, and another smaller flood that is mentioned in rabbinical literature, The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the parting of the Red Sea, Joshua's long day and the day the sundial moved back 10 degrees in Hezekiahs time may all linked to such cataclysmic episodes. Such ideas are disparaged by most people however, because we have lived with such a stable solar system for several thousand years now. Though it is not necessarily logical, it is easy to conclude that our solar system has been in its present stable state for millions of years. I do not wish to dogmatically put forth a near planetary collision as the only mechanism that could have triggered this theoretical collapse of this theoretical ring system. It is not germane to this article. I merely mention it as a possibility to be entertained.
I would add, however, that the Bible text also mentions that the fountains of the deep broke up causing water to come from within the earth as well. Great gravitational stresses from a planetary fly-by would go a long way toward explaining how that could happen.
The Survivors
One would think that such a flood could have small pockets of survivors in remote parts of the globe. I will show that is exactly what happened, in spite of what traditional religious thought has said. That notion seems to agree with the great disparities in the accounts of the flood traditions mentioned above. There were other scattered survivors. Here is why I say that.
In the English one gets the impression that the flood covered the whole of the planet. In Hebrew, however, the meaning is different. The word for earth is eretz. It does not mean the whole planet but rather it means the land or the ground - a somewhat less inclusive term. Thus the text does not require that the entirety of the planet be submerged in water. If there were scattered areas that escaped, might there not also be scattered people who escaped?
Similarly, the Hebrew word kol, usually rendered as all or every, does not have such an absolute meaning as has been suggested. It is often rendered enough, as many as, whatsoever, or any, all of which imply limitations. Indeed, we often use the words all and every in English in a less than absolute sense. If you are asked to gather up all the trash on trash collection day, you do not expect to gather all the trash in the world, but only that which you are personally responsible for. This can especially be shown in the Spanish language, too. The expression for everyone in Spanish is todo el mundo. It literally translates all the world, but clearly is not intended to mean absolutely everyone in the world. One of the best illustrations of this in the Bible occurs just a few verses earlier in Genesis 7:13-14.
On that very day Noah came, with Shem, Ham, and Japeth, Noah's sons with
Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with him into the ark. They
and every beast after its kind, every cattle after its kind, every
creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and all birds
after its kind and every bird of any kind of wing.
Here, the word kol occurs several times, but it clearly was not meant to be in the absolute sense, because the very next verse shows that they only came in two by two.
So this brief explanation shows that the text of the Bible does not require that only the family of Noah survive the flood. Among a wide variety of cultures persists legends of a worldwide disaster in which the vast majority of people died. It is quite likely that Noah and his family were unaware that there were any other survivors. It may have been several hundred years before they encountered other survivors. But the facts of history seem to require that isolated groups survived in other remote cultures. The Chinese culture in the far east almost certainly survived. The Chinese calendar starts at the approximate time of the flood about 4500 years ago. The native American peoples probably survived as well. The Popul Vuh, the holy book of the Quiche Maya, tells of the original settlers coming to this continent through a great flood. The true negroid peoples survived also in central and western Africa. They were among the first to have contact and commerce with the descendants of Noah. I will have more to say about this later. There are also some white European stocks whose lineage seems not to be related to other Europeans of known Noahic descent. The Finnish people and the Basques of Northern Spain, have no known genetic connection to other Europeans, and it is very likely that they also survived the flood. I was told by a well educated man from Somalia that his people have no known genetic links with the other races.
The Bible says that others escaped
We have, in fact, have plain statements in the Bible that allude to other peoples who came through the flood besides the descendants of Noah. Notice:
There were giants in the world in those days : AND ALSO AFTER THAT." Genesis 6:4.
The giants were said to be the offspring of angelic beings who married women. They lived before the flood, but they also lived after the flood. THEREFORE, they must have lived THROUGH the flood. In fact, the Bible mentions a number of giants and groups of giants, who lived after the flood. The most famous was Goliath, whom David killed. But Goliath was not alone. He had several giant brothers. In the region of the Holy Land there were whole races of giants that lived, known as the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, the Rephaim, the Zuzims, the Emim, and others. As a follow up to the flood, God was systematically allowing them to be destroyed because of their wickedness in the land. The five kings under Chedorloamer, in Genesis 14 defeated many of these giants. Og, king of Bashan, was a giant, and he was killed by the Isrealites under Moses. Finally the last of the giants seems to have been destroyed in David's time.
These giant peoples were clearly from pre-flood races, and they all lived in the area that later came to be called Israel. I would add that there is a rabbinical tradition that the Holy Land escaped the flood. This is consistent with the survival of the giants there.
If the giants survived, there is no reason to conclude that others did not survive as well.
How could the family of one man account for all the racial diversity we see in the world - the Mongoloid, the Negroid, and the Caucasoid stocks?
The answer is that it could not and did not. As I have already shown, there were clearly other survivors and therefore it is not necessary to try to trace all racial stocks back to Noah. In fact, nearly all of the descendants of Noah can be tracked from those early families and eventually to those early nations, that we read of in ancient history. Bear in mind that the word "nation" is derived from the Latin "nasci" meaning to be born. The early nations were simply families that had grown great. In time those distinctions became blurred as one empire after another sprang up and forced ethnic groups to migrate and combine in unnatural groupings, but most of those groups can still be traced today.
Genesis 10 contains very important information about how the families of Noah's 3 sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth grew to be the seventy original nations. I have studied this table of nations for many years, and I have been able to trace most of these nations to where they live today. The list in the Bible is supplemented and fleshed out by information in the Book of Jasher and the Book of Jubilees. It is too extensive to include here, but it is summarized in one of the appendices of my book, The Authentic Annals of The Early Hebrews, (also known as the Book of Jasher). I would refer you to that book for the full listing. I will mention a few of these family/nation threads here to illustrate.
In Genesis 10 we read that Japeth had 7 sons. Among them only the families of Javan and Gomer are enumerated to the next generation. But in the Book of Jasher all 7 families are listed through the next generation. Of these I will list a few.
The people of Javan are widely known among Bible scholars as the Greeks today. The Greek term Ionian is the equivalent of Javan. Javan's sons were Elishah, Tarshish, Chittim, and Dodan. Jasher says that "the Javanim dwell in the land of Makdonia (Macedonia)." The Book of Jubilees elaborates that this includes "all the islands which are toward Edalud (Lud or Lydia in Asia Minor). We call these the Greek Islands today.
One of the principal regions of Greece was occupied by the Aeoloans. Josephus says these were the people of Elishah. Their principal city in Greece was Elis. According to Jasher they were originally known as the Alemani. They were also known as the Lombardi who invaded Brutium in southern Italy in the time of Joshua. They were also one of the successive peoples who occupied Cyprus for a time. One of the ancient names for that Island is Alisha.
Chittim is clearly the Romans. This identity comes out over and over in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Jasher also identifies Chittim as "the Romim, who dwell in the Valley of Canopia (Campania) by the river Tibreu (Tiber). It also gives a substantial amount of their early history. Some identify Cyprus with Chittim because of the name of the city of Kittion there, but Cyprus had a fragile island economy and its successive populations vacated the island only to be replaced by some other group. Cyprus was a Roman colony at one time.
Dodan (or Rodan) seems to have occupied "the cities of the sea Gijon (the Atlantic Ocean) in the land of Bordna (Bordeaux region of France) according to Jasher. The Rodanus (Rhine) river there bears their name. They seem to have also colonized the Island of Rhodes.
Tarshish is more difficult to pin down. He seems to have occupied an area in Asia Minor where the city of Tarsus was. But his name is associated with cities in Spain and Sardinia as well. Jasher shows them allied with the Ishmaelites in a war with Egypt during Joseph's time.
Similarly, we can show where the other sons of Japeth settled, as well as the sons of Shem and Ham, and the early nations that descended from them, but space in this article does not permit us to go further. For the complete list consult Appendix B of our publication of the Book of Jasher entitled The Authentic Annals Of The Early Hebrews. Practically all of the descendants of Noah can be traced in this manner. When this is done an interesting conclusion comes to light.
All the descendants of Noah can be traced to caucasian peoples.
By tracing the descendants nations of Noah it seems clear that Noah was white, as were his wife, his sons, and there wives. Yes, there was a whole spectrum of hues ranging from the blue-eyed pale Nordics to the olive toned brown eyed mediterranean types and the darker North African types, but they are all classified by anthropologists as caucasian. Please understand that I am not implying that there is any kind of racial superiority shown here. I am simply reporting the facts as best I can based on the evidence at hand. Racial prejudice has no place in this discussion.
There is not the slightest evidence that shows that any of the descendants of Noah migrated into the remote parts of the world in ancient times - the great oriental culture of the Chinese, or of the Black aboriginal culture of Africa, for example. Nor is there a single word to show that the so-called Indians of the western hemisphere came from Noah. I cannot escape the clear evidence that biblical history is primarily about the Caucasian peoples. However, that in no way indicates that any racial group is superior or inferior to any other.
What about the Ethiopians?
There is one problem area in this material that requires some explanation. The people of Cush are known in most Bible versions as the Ethiopians. This is not entirely true, because Cush can be shown to have occupied many other areas across the Arabian Gulf, throughout Arabia, and into Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan. It is common in the west to think of the Ethiops as Black, but in reality they are also classified by anthropologists as caucasian. There is clearly evidence of Black ancestry in their stock, as is true of the peoples of other eastern African nations, but they are classified as predominately caucasian. The pure negroid peoples live in the western and central nations of Africa, such as Niger and Liberia. If you have ever met people from this area of Africa you undoubtedly have noticed that they have truly black complexion rather than the brown mix that is common of Blacks in the United States.
It appears that the some branches of the people of Cush came in contact with black pre-flood races very soon after the flood and that they intermarried with them, producing a variety of races of brown complexions. It is unfortunate that in our prejudicial western way of thinking, these people are all classified derisively as black, when they may have as much or more caucasian blood than black. Whether from bigotry or simple ignorance, it obscures a clear understanding of the issue.
Almost all of northern Africa is populated with Mediterranean types of peoples who are clearly caucasian, though they may be quite dark - people like the Egyptians, the Libyans, and the Moroccans. These are descendants of Hamites, with some Shemites (mostly Arabs) and some Japhethites (Phoenicians - descendants of the family of Tiras) who have migrated there.
So my conclusion is clearly that the families of Shem, Ham, and Japeth, the three sons of Noah, eventually grew to comprise the majority of the white peoples of the planet. Other races, as well as a small part of the white stock sprang from pre-flood races. This may account for the vast cultural and religious differences between far eastern societies and that of the West and the Middle East. Again, I emphasize that this in no way implies any kind of racial superiority or inferiority.
Though I cannot cover every issue concerning the flood in this article, there is one more aspect that I will mention briefly. Though controversial, there is good reason to believe that the remains of Noah's ark have been found. David Fasold, who died recently, has spent many years researching a site in western Turkey, where a large boat shaped stone mass appeared suddenly after a powerful earthquake shook loose the earthen covering that concealed it for millennia. The location is not on the peak that we know as Mt. Ararat (that is a modern designation - not an ancient one). But it is in the mountains of Ancient Urartu (Ararat), in present day Turkey. Fasold investigated the site and the history at length. He reported his findings in a book and in audio tapes. The craft at first appears to be petrified, but closer examination seems to suggest that it is fashioned of reeds, encased in a polymer material to bind it together - a sort of cement boat. And yes, cement boats float and they are being made today. No one has determined just what Gopher wood is, so there is nothing to prove that it could not be reed wood. Incidently, Fasold had years of experience in the merchant marine, so he knows his boats.
A one time associate of Fasold, Mr. Ron Wyatt, accompanied him on several of the expeditions to this site. Although he went on to work independently, he has written prolifically on the web about the site and his experiences.
Though these men have their detractors, (mostly, those who object to this site as the location of the ark) The evidence is very convincing. In fact, the government of Turkey has recognized it as the official site of Noah's ark. If you are able to locate one of Fasold's books I encourage you to buy it and explore the issue for yourself. One factor that I find very significant is that the rock like formation appeared in an earthquake in May of 1948, at the very time that Israel was being granted nationhood status by the United Nations. It was also, curiously, the time of one of the most intense flying saucer flaps. A great deal more could be written about this site, but it will have to wait for another time. As with everything on this site, we provide this information so that you can be informed amout the issue. You can make up your own mind about it.
There are many other aspects of the flood issue that could be addressed. Most of problems are simply due to misinterpretation of the text. What I have endeavored to do here is to discuss the major show stopper issues. Everything else is minor. In any event, I believe the scenario I have painted here offers a far more credible understanding of Noah's flood and it is consistent with the biblical text, the record of history, and the physical sciences.
(c) Copyright 2000 by Wayne Simpson
Distributed by Biblical Research Foundation
629 Lexington Road
Sapulpa, OK 74066
This article may be reproduced and distributed provided this copyright notice appears on all copies.
http://www.countz.com/top100/