Why is the story of the Flood so detailed?

Your argument summarized from my perspective (let me know if I’m misunderstanding you please);

  • Because fossilization is a rare process it is reasonable to conclude that Homo erectus lived nearly 4 million years before our earliest evident of this species
  • It lines up with the Bible better that Noah was a Homo erectus and not ardipithecus kadibba
  • The vineyard wine part I’m unsure about still

Um, yes?

I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh.

When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

“I grasp how this could be understood and interpreted in a “local” perspective. My issue is that so interpreted, this solomn covenant becomes a complete lie, no?”

My thought is that Genesis is very Israel-centric, if that is a word. It describes the history only of Abrahams descendants and those who interact with them. No mention of the Clovis people or Chinese and Indian civilizations arising in that era. The nations of the world are essentially the nations surrounding Israel. The world is essential just the world of Israel. The covenant is with Israel. So the world wide flood is local also. I am OK with the idea that a local world flood may have happened, though it is not necessary to the message communicated, so I really don’t worry to much about it.

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In my mind my argument is better than yours which says if we don’t have a fossil of it, it didn’t exist when it is known that a vast majority of existing and once existant species are never ever found as fossils. Am I open to an Australopithecine being Adam and Eve? Yes, because the curse for both Eve and for Adam involved an enlargement of our brain. Pain in childbirth has been with us for millions of years because even H. habilis’s head was too big to go through the birth canal without causing the mother pain. The sweat of the brow which Adam was cursed with has to do with the need to keep our large brains cool so we don’t over heat that delicate organ. As evolution moved us towards larger heads our brows became a major part of the coolant system for the brain. Look Up Dean Falk’s radiator theory. The brain could only be as big as the cooling system allows and certain blood vessel density in our brows grew in lockstep with our brain size. Seconldy, I have shown in my article “Does a small brain make you dumb” that the smallest normal modern human brain was the size of an habilis brain, about 650 cc, yet the guy was perfectly normal intellectually. There are actually smaller brains with normal intelligence but they are also a wee bit abnormal–yet, of normal intelligence. Brain size means nothing for intelligence level.

So to me, I prefer a larger brained Adam and Eve but there is both scientific and scriptural data that suggests that they might have been smaller brained, but not likely down to Ardepithecine level.

I would add here that you seem to be unaware that our oldest human genes are about 5.5 million years old, meaning humanity has been one interbreeding population for that length of time. the average age of our genes is around a million to a million 300k years old. Humanity is much older than Christians want to believe.

To end, this, my views are an integrated whole and all the pieces fit with the science we know about.

What’s a ‘human gene?’

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I know I have referenced this article before, but this post led me to re-read it in light of the discussion on dates. According to the article, the most likely date for a local flood in around 5700BC based on geologic and historic data. He also presents a discription of the ark based on a literal translation (not well documented as to where he got it however) that is considerably different that Hamm’s. Interested in what you guys think.

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Welcome to the Forum! We also have an entire category of content dedicated to the Flood. It may be a good place to continue your line of questions!

Hello and welcome,

I don’t find it really detailed since there is a lot that isn’t said but it is interesting that if it is metaphorical the author just happened to pick dimensions that have been demonstrated by calculation and wave tank models to be really seaworthy. Compare this to the similar story in the Epic of Gilgamesh where the “ark” is a cube and would be highly unseaworthy. But on the other hand actual details of construction are not given.

I’m not sure they are important so much as they are used as an idiom to represent a period of time. It rained 40 days and 40 nights; Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness. The writers probably did not mean exactly 40 x 24hour periods, rather it is a figure of speech indicating some extended period of time.

BTW I am YEC myself (at least for the time being) and accept that there was a global flood.

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The question of was there a global flood or was there not a global flood is really: What is the best explanation of why the earth looks and acts the way it does? What explanation fits best with the physical evidence available to all? >
Does the earth look and act the way it does because of a flood or not?
Related questions that must be answered with obedience to physics:

  • Where specifically did all the sediments (greater than 1 mile thick on all continents) come from?
  • How were the sedimentary layers sorted so well?
  • Where did the enormous amount of of limestone in the sedimentary layers come from?
  • How did fossils form?
  • Where did all the silica and quartz come from to cement all the sedimentary layers?
  • What caused the mid oceanic ridge and ocean trenches?
  • Why was sea level up to 3 miles lower at one point?
  • How did mountains form?
  • Why the recent change to a 365.25 day year from 360?
  • What caused the earth’s radioactivity and why is it concentrated in the crust?
  • Why are there temperate climate animals and plants buried in the Arctic.
  • What is the 90 East ridge?
  • How did ores form and why are they deposited where they are?
  • What causes magnetic variations on earth?
    What theory best explains these things and is physically possible?
    When examining an opposing theory one must use that theories assumptions and set aside ones own assumptions. Read here (long read) for a flood theory with a rebuttal of the current paradigm of plate tectonics mixed in. Also look at the work of Christian Smoot (old earth) for another rebuttal of plate tectonics.
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That’d be great… except the hydro plate models fails miserably as squeezing lots of physics into small time periods leads to lots of heat, incinerating everything on the planet a hundred times over.

It could be interesting to discuss any of these one by one in their own threads if you’d like to start one.

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If it had all happened at once that might be true, but it took place over 150 days. The energy and heat was very directed along a narrow strip. Also according to the theory roughly half the water in the current oceans were underground in place to remove the heat and the energy. The super critical water under the crust lubricating the crustal plates was also the mean for the plates being able to drift away from the mid Atlantic ridge to their present positions.

That always makes billions of years worth of radiometric decay radiation, plate tectonic motion over thousands of k), and much more a lot better when it’s 150 days instead of 1 day.

I’ll try again though, is there a single specific topic you’d like to discuss @dlc? I see attempts above have been unfruitful as you keep repeating Brown’s nonsense on changing radiometric decay rates despite multiple attempts at explaining well real physics to you.

The subject of radioactive decay is above my ability to easily understand. For a 35 min explanation watch here. Or read the whole chapter here. Both would address your questions.

Another question: have you read Dr Brown’s work for yourself?

I did and saw much that has been debunked already. Are you aware of the RATE project? They spent years trying to explain away the radioactive decay evidence. They ended up admitting that it would require a miracle to speed up the decay rate.

Also there has to be an explanation for why known radioactives are missing from the earth’s crust. See here .

For just one of many confirmations of radioactive decay rates see here.

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Science works well when exploring evidence to the best explanation, and hence you arrive at theories which are the best current working model and explanation… but id still caution that in such cases the “best” explanation in many cases can still be erroneous. There is still a significant gap between the question of fact of “was there a global flood” and the theory regarding “what is the best explanation.”

I am philosophically opposed to the idea of Occam’s razor for this very reason… the simplest explanation that answers the facts may yet be a false explanation, whereas a more complicated, convoluted explanation may yet be the true one. If I were in fact innocent of a murder, having been framed by a complex conspiracy, I would hope that the investigators in said case would pursue the true answer, not necessarily the one that most easily and simply “best explained” the relevant facts.

In the case of a worldwide flood 6000 years ago, the evidence points not only to no evidence that it ever occurred, but that also that something completely different happened. The combination of both positive and negative evidence leaves only one explanation if you insist on it: God cleaned up all evidence that it ever happened, and left false evidence that something else took place.
That explanation is untenable given the the presupposition of God being good, God being truth, and God being holy.

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God saves His people – from themselves, from the world, from sin, and death. When I think about the flood, I like to look forward in Scripture:

Save me, O God!
For the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in deep mire,
where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters,
and the flood sweeps over me.
I am weary with my crying out;
my throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim
with waiting for my God. (Psalm 69: 1-3)

Drowning is a sea of sin, trying to swim - by the Law, by personal righteousness, struggling and tiring. However faithful and resolved we are, we cannot save ourselves. We call upon God to deliver us. His “ark” is a plan for salvation, a hope that lifts us out of the polluted waters. His plan, His work, His strength and power. It is specific, detailed, planned, and assured. The ark does not drift or founder, no matter the storms or the waves created by the world of sin and temptation. For this reason, hope has long been pictured as an anchor.

Then there’s the prophecy aspects of the flood story, bringing us through water to salvation:

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. (1 Peter 3:18-22)

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You can listen to the heat issues discussed: Intro, Atmosphere, Atmosphere and oceans, Crust, andFinal
Objections of Kuban, Reed, Baumgardner, and Faulkner are addressed.
The RATE study is also addressed. Their need for miracles is an admission that their catastrophic plate tectonics theory is a failure.

Edited to add last link.

Water deposited sedimentary layers over a mile deep on all the continents demonstrates a need for much water in the past. Makes it impossible for me to eliminate the possibility of a global flood.

Those sedimentary layers are perfectly sorted over all the continents. A global flood couldn’t do that. The layers contain traces of life, tracks, burrows, nests. A global flood wouldn’t do that. The layers contain vast amounts of salt that formed by evaporation. A global flood wouldn’t do that. I could go on and on.

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