Continuing..
So, then Noah's Flood didn't happen?
Jesus speaks about the flood, and as such I do count it to be a real historical event. But that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a real event that was turned into a parable of epic proportions for the purpose of teaching others.
When I say it was turned into a parable, I mean that the stories proportions were built like a Hollywood movie, similar to some of Christs own parables, or the book of Jonah. This brings a certain element of entertainment and awe to those who receive it.
19 Finally, the waters completely prevailed upon the earth, so that all the high mountains under all the heavens were covered.
23 And every living thing on the face of the earth was destroyed—man and livestock, crawling creatures and birds of the air; they were blotted out from the earth, and only Noah and those with him in the ark remained.
Genesis 7:19 and 23
These same passages once used for effect now lay in the hands of literalism as tools for correction. That’s why I know about them. They were key details to me while I was in Adventism.. But there is no proof that they actually mean what they say.
What I say is true!
The famine was over all the face of the earth, and Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold to the Egyptians. And the famine became severe in the land of Egypt. So all countries came to Joseph in Egypt to buy grain, because the famine was severe in all lands.
Genesis 41:56-57
And
And all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart.
2 Chronicles 9:23
You can look up the Hebrew yourself. These verses use the exact same words/phrase in Hebrew for “all the earth” as Genesis 7:23. There is no difference.
Are we to believe that people from Australia, form south America in places like modern Chile, from Polynesia or Japan all traveled to Egypt just to buy grain? Did these same places hear of the great wisdom of Solomon in Israel and decide to travel there?
You may believe they did if you wan to –but will you call others a fool, apostate, or lost if they don’t believe it with you? I can only imagine how much grain one would have to bring along just to cross the oceans if they had.
And even the phrase “under all the heavens” is a phrase that is used for effect, a hyperbole if you will. The bible runs thick with hyperboles: In places like Matthew 5:30 and Mark 9:45 Jesus said things like cut your foot off it makes you stumble, and yet, we all know how to read it within context. He also says in Matthew 13:32 that the mustard seed is the smallest, when it obviously isn’t. The language is used for effect.
There is at least one example of this same phrase “under heaven” also existing plainly for this purpose within the Scriptures.
Now there were Jews residing in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven.
Acts 2:5
Certainly there were none in Jerusalem also from these same aforementioned places like Australia our Chile during the time of Jesus.
Lets digress from this shall we?
Babylonian Colusion?
The parallels between the Epic of Gilgamesh and Genesis are profound. Either one (the oldest being the Epic of Gilgamesh) was inspiration for the other, or parallel memories were passed down through the generations, along with genealogical records as far back as the Hebrews could keep verbal records alive. Reason would side with the simplest explanation. The parallels are too close.
We can account the flood narrative to be based on a real cultural memory, a natural disaster so big that it it destroyed the known world for a lot of people. Maybe even something as big as the Black Sea deluge hypothesis. Meanwhile, Babylon and Israel did spend a lot of time together, and the use of modern language, as well as the reference to places that were not significant until after the return from Babylon does suggest that these portions of the scriptures were updated, and potentially to try to bring back such epic tales into the realm of one God, one Creator, the God of Israel.
Whether we choose to believe in a global flood, the fall, or a literal creation week, we should be able to see here that there is reason to understand that now is not the time to try to pick at the spiritual eyesight of others in these regards. Let us rather find love and remain obedient to the teachings of Christ, who these scriptures were unarguably intended to point to.
The Nephilim Dilemma
Taking only a strictly literal historical approach to interpreting the biblical flood account still presents it’s own problems. This requires understanding who the Nephilim were in the context of Noah and the Flood. This particular aspect is often overlooked or misunderstood, leading to numerous speculative and sometimes bizarre theories about human women having sexual relations with and offspring from spiritual beings.
The Bible describes “sons of God” having sexual relations with the “daughters of man,” resulting in offspring known as Nephilim. Some refer to the non-canonical Book of Enoch to support the idea that these “sons of God” were fallen angels engaging in relations with human women, producing giants as their offspring. However, there are strong reasons to reject the Book of Enoch as divinely inspired, keeping it instead as a novel and non-canonical text from antiquity, consistent with the stance of most Christian traditions.
In the Bible, the phrase “sons of God” can refer both to humans and angels. When applied to humans, the term typically describes those who are faithful to God. Consequently, many scholars conclude that Noah and his sons were among these “sons of God.” Humans themselves, yet Sons of God in spirit.
The Nephilim are unique in that they appear both before and after the flood, as indicated in Genesis 6:1-4 and Numbers 13:32–33, where ten of the Twelve Spies describe the Anakites (a Rephaite tribe) as descendants of the Nephilim:
And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come of the Nephilim; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.
Numbers 13:33
The Anakim, Rephaim, and other giant clans in Canaan (Deuteronomy 2–3, Joshua 11) may represent a later group associated with Nephilim-like traits.
Some Christians resolve this post flood Nephilim delima by proposing that angels procreate with women before the flood, and then again afterwards with Noah’s descendants.
On the other hand, an apparent contradiction lies in identifying Noah’s family as Nephilim themselves -if the “sons of God” were their faithful Adamic ancestors. This is because while the Nephilim are later depicted as Israel’s unfaithful enemies, they are always in context of having the genes of giants. Considering the shorter stature of native ancient Hebrews, a literal interpretation suggests they did not inherit a that once faithful “Nephilim gene” from Noah.
Furthermore, if only Noah’s family survived the flood, how did the Nephilim reappear, and why did it verbally link the same group to those after the flood starting in Genesis?
“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.”
Genesis 6:4, NASB
To resolve this, many Protestant denominations, including Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Anglican/Episcopalian, and Seventh-day Adventists, interpret Nephilim as simply “giants.” While this literal “giants” definition is most agreeable, the survival of the Nephilim lineage through the flood should remain debatable.
When considering a story based on oral history with artifacts based on historical events, the mention of Noah’s ark landing in the mountains of Ararat could support the idea of the Flood account describing a major regional catastrophe caused by raising oceans, such as the Black Sea Flood Hypothesis. Such an event, while devastating to those within its scope, would have constituted their entire world, leaving other regions unaffected.
In an uneducated ancient world, I imagine that legends of Giants was a way to keep people away from certain places. And as such, living giants were a strong and healthy tall tale. Something that is from a place we’ve never been.
Substancial Proof for a Regional Disaster
Flowering Plants
Have you ever considered the lack of flowering plan (angiosperm) pollen or flower bearing fruit bearing fossils up through the Jurassic layers? This has long been a known diabolical for young earth creationist (YEC) believers.
Starting in the Cretaceous period we start seeing flower pollen extensively, and the dinosaurs begin having what appears to be flower pollen in their stomachs. But the dinosaurs that existed before that period did not have angiosperm pollen in their stomachs, nor is angiosperm pollen found.
YECs will pitch this like it’s twised truth, and that angiosperm pollen has already been found. I can think of one article from by Brian Thomas, M.S., & Tim Clarey, Ph.D. “Pollen Fossils Warp Evolutionary Time” where they had me convinced that angiosperm pollen has been found in the middle Jurassic, but what I found was that they were twisting the journal article to appear to be in their favor.
This journal article that Thomas and Clarey reference highlight multiple morphological features of the pollen grains that align with what is known from (early) angiosperm pollen. These include:
Monosulcate condition: The pollen grains have a single sulcus (a slit or furrow aperture). Many early angiosperm pollen grains are monosulcate.
Columellate structure: The exine (outer wall) shows columellae (rod-like supports) connecting the outer layer (tectum) to a thin inner layer (nexine). That is, the “sexine” (outer wall part) is built via columns, a feature often present in angiosperm pollen.
Semitectate / reticulate sculpture: The outer wall is discontinuous or perforated (i.e. “semitectate”) and shows reticulate (net-like) patterning. That kind of sculpturing with a network of muri (ridges) and lumina (spaces) is typical of many angiosperm pollen.
Thin inner wall (nexine): The inner wall layer is extremely thin, which is more characteristic of angiosperm pollen (versus thicker walls in many gymnosperm or spore analogs).
Combination of the “full suite” of angiosperm pollen synapomorphies: The authors argue that the combination of being small, monosulcate, columellate, and having a reticulate exine meets what they consider the “full inventory” of angiosperm pollen synapomorphies (i.e. derived characters).
Phylogenetic / evolutionary plausibility: Because molecular clock estimates (depending on method) sometimes push the origin of angiosperms further back in time, there’s at least theoretical room for angiosperm-like forms in the Triassic. The authors cite that some molecular estimates place the origin in the Late Permian, Triassic, or Early Jurassic.
Stem-group possibility / convergence: The authors also hedge by not claiming they are necessarily crown-group angiosperms, but rather perhaps stem relatives. That more cautious stance helps them justify the possibility while acknowledging uncertainties.
With deep time, what we would expect to see in the Jurassic would be morphiological changes in pollen as several species got closer and closer to full array of changes necessary to become a flowering plant. Meanwhile, from a YEC perspective, we would expect that we need to find pollen at the Triassic level before the Jurassic if the earth was around 6000 years old, or even at the bottom of oceans near aquatic life in the Permian, as we find in the oceans today. Both of these stack in favor of deep time scenarios.
The earliest discovery of flowing plants comes from a late Jurassic layer find in China which is thought to be the birth place of flowering type plants. Then boom, in the Cretaceous period there is a ton of flowing plants and abundant pollen.
Snow Records
As the Dr Hugh Ross [a Christian himself] brought up in a debate with Dr Terry Mortenson, there is sufficient observable evidence for no global flood in Antarctica.
He says that we can compare records of some of the biggest volcano explosions across the ancient world and align them perfectly with ash layers in Antarctica. We can see the layers of years in between them and compare them with records in China and across the ancient world to establish the dates, and the layers all match up going back around three thousand (3000) years or more. We know what those layers are in Antarctica.
The primary issue is those layers are then sitting on top of more than eight hundred thousand years worth of snow layers below them. Young earth creationism can not explain this, and we know that a global cataclysm couldn’t have produce sufficient snowfall to release anything close to that mass of moisture from the air.
Simply put, there is evidence we can see with the naked eye that does not require equipment to gauge that the earth has been around for a very very long time.
God still has his hand in creation, and Jesus is still our redeemer. That's something that will not be taken from us.
Corals
As discussed in Part 1 of this series, sea levels have been rising, and falling ever since the foundation of the world. Places like the Enewetak Atoll hold direct proof of this, as does the island of Hawaii. Drowned shallow water coral reef studies have shown that throughout hundreds of thousands of years, the oceans have repeatedly grown and then entirely drowned shallow water coral species, and then receded later to develop a new layer, even at a new exposed rock level, or atop older reef layers. In some cases, completely exposed older layers can be found higher on the slopes of Hawaii since that is the last time the seas were consistently at those levels.
At Enewetak, the coral growths are nearly 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles) thick of solid coral. As such, if the end of the last ice age caused sea levels to rise so quickly as to cover and drown the corals with 120 or more meters of water, then Enewetak would be buried deep under water. This is evidence that it had already grown corals at higher elevations during ice age cycles that came before it.
Irrespective of the time it would take to grow Enewetak to a thickness of more than 1.4km, the fact that the atolls are still above water now is evidence that they pre existed the last repaid raise in ocean levels. Just like Hawaii, these sea mounts are still slowly subducting, not being pushed up.
At some point around 13,000 years ago, the atolls would have looked like lofty white hills floating on the pacific ocean, and then during the maximum of warm global trends, they can still be buried below sea level a distance that would drown the existing growths. This is because the current ice caps contain enough water to raise sea levels by another 70 meters.
Sea levels have been rising for a long time, and dramatically starting some 11,000 years ago. So why wouldn’t there be a flood story if vast land masses had been covered? Why wouldn’t there be accounts of grand tempest and water level changes?
Taken at face value, the biblical account says the waters rose over a 150 day period, and that it was coupled with persistent rain. Taken at face value this is consistent with weather patterns being disrupted after a glacial reservoir breach, and rapidly changing temperatures. Also referencing the “fountains of the deep being broken open” may reflect that that the oceans rose more than the water raining down could account for.
A more simple explanation is that the dialogue on Noahs flood was a narrative that fit the origin stories, and the details were compiled in such a way as to show what they assumed would be the most truthful and scientifically sound explanation for its time. Otherwise it’s just a symbolic story about being birthed into this world we are in right now.
Physical Evidence Recap
So far we have touched on observable evidence for the age of life on this planet. Life trapped in a cycle of life-and-death that expands far beyond a 6000 year timeline, to something more like 500,000 years. These are not my hypothesis, we can observe it with our own eyes, and we are not relying on the fossil record in this case.
Back in Part 1 we also looked at the conspicuous distribution of species at conflict with a post flood migration from the middle east
There has been a lot to it, so let’s maybe recap those scientific items:
- The lack of angiosperm pollen in layers where it needs to be for the Noahs flood story to be taken with real historical value.
- Drowned corals show a growth pattern that can only be achieved over hundreds of thousands of years of cycling through life, death, and new growth.
- Keep in mind these are modern shallow water species corals going back ~500,000 years, not fossil corals.
- The Giant Moa bird in New Zealand certainly did not swim to New Zealand. It is native to the Island.
- The Elephant Bird of Madagascar didn’t swim there either. It is native to the island.
- Marsupials and unique creatures such as the platypus couldn’t have walked together from Noah’s arc to Australia alone. Especially the small ones like the blind and deaf marsupial mole.
- Many of the marsupials have living relatives in South America, but not Asia, Africa, Europe, or native to North America.
- There are marsupial fossils found in Antarctica, which used to be attached to both South America and Australia. This suggests this was their corridor for migration when the region was warmer.
- Native land animals east of what is known as the Wallace Line are vastly different from those to the west, which shows that those animals never co-mingled with those in Asia.
These observable evidences are as strong as any word of criticism in contrary to sound observation. God is not so cruel to try to fool us.
Anyway, it’s not the doctrine that’s wrong, it’s the interpretation and frame it has been placed in that carries error with it.
Shaken Faith
When I really applied myself to find new answers I hadn’t seen discussed on the internet or in scholarly papers regarding the flood debate, I felt very burdened by what I discovered. Especially after discovering the studies on corals.
It was not what I wanted! The other way was more comfortable. I grumbled in my heart a bit, perhaps to the point of being guilty, but then a powerful notion was presented: “Don’t cry over spilled milk”.
This is biblical
Do not say, ‘Why were the old days better than these?’ For it is not wise to ask such questions.
Ecclesiastes 7:10
I knew it was time to grow up, and I knew my faith wasn’t going to evaporate. I just need to wait on God. 1st John chapter 4 says,”there is no fear in love”, and I fear no punishment in discovering mere truth.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
1 John 4:18, NASB
I suppose the other option would to just be angry. I have felt it. I mean, God is not the one we expect to be shrouded in deep mystery. We could call it dishonesty if we were to not have any faith, but I believe God has a way for us to bear this burden of truth also. Many Christians have already accepted it.
It is our faulty human nature that wants to blame the mess on God. If our faith is shaken, we will be tempted to pack up and leave the faith. Here we are called to reflect, to pray about it. The Spirit will lead, and may he help us comprehend that extra unseen 4th dimension of Christs love that the apostle Paul called “depth”.
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth 19 of the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:17-19
Reconciling Our Faith
I come from a background where this document will be proof to many that I no longer serve the God of the bible. To the contrary, the God of the Bible is deeper than the surface understanding.
And here will be out proof. God has shown since the beginning that he’ll meet people where they are at. as such he’ll meet the fundamental Christian where they are. He’ll meet anyone where they are and he’ll bring them into His love.
On the other hand, there are some who will say we’ve been rejected by God because we don’t have their message. To the contrary, they say this because they have fear.
I see this as akin to the parable of the talents given to the servants. One hurried what he had received so that he wouldn’t loose it, and gave it back upon his master’s return. Another servant made a portion more.
These are two types. The one who buries his talents had fear, and as such he would not budge. This one was foolish. The other made what they could with the talents, which can be any one of us who gathers more where there wasn’t anything previously.
To tell me or any other person questioning subjects like this that they have rejected the faith will not be profitable. If you can’t help them, show them love. Don’t be the one to throw stones. It will never prosper you to do that.
I honestly believe that like the one who believes that if the Bible says it, then it must be literal truth, is no more a fool than I am myself. We still both believe in Christ and love alike.
For the one who believes that the dialogue herein is of a lost person, and evidence of increasing wickedness within Christianity, render it to Christ. I will not judge you for your beliefs, and I will ask for forgiveness for your sins not leading to death –that is, if you harm my well-being because you think you are doing the right thing, then you will be forgiven.
I would expect that there be no other way for anyone else who reads this. We will be tried by those who think this is a falling away from the truth, but it is only fear within those who are currently incapable of accepting Jesus can still exist within the scope of this new knowledge.
Conclusion
Despite best efforts by those who fear ceasing to believe in a literal interpretation of the biblical origin story, with deep inspection the biblical, there remins evidence for misconception of the meaning in Genesis 1-11.
We should really be focusing on what parts of the scriptures are more cut and dry. Items like love, obedience, ,grace, and how the life of Christ is our pattern to live by.
4. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; 5. but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: 6. the one who says he abides in [Jesus] ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.
1 John 2:4-6, NASB
The sum of the bible is: God is love, we have been called to repentance from sin, and that God would send his Son to redeem us from a broken and sinful nature. In the meantime he’s been telling us what would come to pass through prophecy, some details about how earth’s history would end, and then harmoniously began anew someday.
This happened though scribes and authors who have been giving their testimonies about God from their historical and experiential perspectives since just about as far back as massive civilizations have existed. As such it is a credible book that calls all of mankind to love and repentance.
The New Testament says that God has stopped winking at our ignorance in regard to sin, since we have Jesus as our revealed Savior, our standard of righteousness, our appointed Judge — and the One who stands in our place as our substitute and intercessor
“And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent:”
Acts 17:30 (KJV)
While we have been enabled to help shape the way in which we believe, the final decision between what will be right and wrong will be left up to God. Despite these advancements, God is still winking at our additional ignorances. This is why Jesus said we would be in danger of hell fire for telling others they are a fool.
“But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment:
and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council:
but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.”
Matthew 5:22 (KJV)
How could we condemn others if we also are so foolish?
God’s greatest commands are to love God and neighbor; following these principles offers well being – and herein is wisdom. If Christ is our firm foundation, then we’ll be safe.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, so that He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:9
