A Bridge Over Troubled Waters
A Scientific Look into the Genesis Flood Account

by Hugh Ross, Ph.D.
intro by Mark Ritter

Most Christians would agree that the most important aspects concerning the Genesis Flood are these: Humans were evil beyond words; God judged them through a devastating flood; He saved one family from the deluge; they survived to start anew.
Most Christians would also agree that exactly how He accomplished it is often a matter of interpretation—it is a non-salvation issue. There are several views as to His precise method (e.g. was it local or global?) none of which takes away from the work done at Calvary by Jesus Christ. But being a non-salvation issue does not mean we are allowed to throw logic and evidence to the four winds. Christians are still responsible for presenting the truth, in love.
This tract by Dr. Hugh Ross deals with some "controversial" subjects concerning the Genesis Flood. Some will find the discussions offensive, some will find them challenging. But they are presented with the purpose of strengthening faith, building up strong defenses, and challenging Christians to think through their beliefs. It is hoped that the reader will become more responsible to a secular world which demands, as Christians should themselves, that the faith established by the Living God of the Bible should be built upon nothing less than the Truth...

Noah's Floating Zoo

I can imagine that nearly everyone who talks about his/her beliefs with friends and associates has at one time or another encountered objections to the factuality of the story of Noah and the ark. Many times in my travels I have heard people excuse their rejection of the scriptures with some comment about the incredulity of a boat and a handful of people rescuing all species of life from a global deluge a few thousand years ago. They assume that is what the Bible says—after all, countless children’s books portray it that way—and they know that science tells a different tale.
There is no way in so short an article I can address all the key issues, so I will address a few this time and a few more in the following essays and leave the rest to your own study and research. For now let us look at the problem of the number of animals, the size of the ark, the quantity of food, and the number of caretakers.
Estimates of the number of species of animal life on Earth fall between 1.5 million and 6 million1. Considering the current extinction rate, this figure would have been higher in the days of Noah. Genesis 6 tells us that the ark was 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. Though we cannot be exact about the modern equivalent of Noah’s cubit, scholars can give us the outer limit, which indicates that the ark was between 450 and 900 feet long. In other words, it was close to the size of an aircraft carrier. (Given such dimensions, the biblical account of the time required—about 100 years—for Noah to build the ark certainly seems plausible!)
What does present a problem is the fact that a boat of such enormous dimensions still would be too small to accommodate so many species of creatures and their food supply, nor could so small a staff of keepers (the eight members of Noah’s family) have handled the task of feeding and cleaning.
In this case, as in so many others, we need not panic, but simply take a closer look at what we think we already know, including the text itself and the context. Let’s start with the latter. We know that the story of Noah is a story about God’s judgment, His purging the world of rampant, epidemic sin. What light does the rest of scripture shed on this subject, and therefore on this passage?
Many, many verses affirm that sin is damaging, defiling. First Corinthians 6 says that some sins are more defiling than others. The Old Testament gives specific statements about the extent of the defilement and of God’s response to it:

• All sins defile the person who commits them (Leviticus 18:24).
• Some sins defile the sinner and the sinner’s progeny for several generations (Exodus 20:5).
• Some sins defile the sinner, his progeny, and the birds and mammals which are part of his livelihood (Joshua 6:21).
• Some sins defile all the above plus the sinner’s material possessions (Numbers 16:23-33).
• Some sins defile all the above plus the sinner’s agricultural land (Leviticus 18:24-28).

Nowhere in the Bible do we see God’s meting out judgment beyond these limits, and we can apply that principle in the case of Noah. Thus, we gain some valuable guidelines for determining the extent of the flood, geographically and otherwise. The matter of geography I will save for discussion in the second part of this series.
As for the animals, we would expect God to destroy all those that had been defiled by the wickedness of mankind. That would include all the cattle, sheep, etc. owned and/or tended by anyone other than Noah, though perhaps even some of his animals would have been harmed if they had been in contact with others’.
A close examination of the text reveals that only two Hebrew words are used in the Genesis flood account to refer to the animals destroyed by the flood and to those taken aboard the ark. The words are nephesh and basar. The word nephesh translates as "soulish" animals and refers to those creatures with characteristics of mind, will, and emotions, creatures with a unique capacity to relate to humans. We call them mammals and birds. It is their soulishness2 which makes them particularly susceptible to the effects of man’s sin. The word basar refers more specifically to those birds and mammals that are part of man’s economic system, that is, to livestock, poultry, game animals, any birds or mammals that have had contact with man.
So, the animal species rescued via the ark were nephesh, particularly in the category of basar, living within the reach of the flood’s devastation. They may have numbered in the hundreds and probably did not exceed a few thousand. The ark, then would have been quite adequate to house them and their food, and eight people could have cared for them, as well as for themselves, for many months. There is no problem of credibility on this point.
How important to the credibility of the story would be the finding of a remnant of the ark? To me it would seem insignificant compared with the abundance and reliability of geological, geophysical, and historical evidence. These subjects are covered in the next essay...

The Waters of the Flood

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Genesis Flood is its geographical extent. Part of the basis for the controversy is that Genesis addresses the geophysics, geology, and geography of the flood only secondarily. Its main message is that God was compelled to cleanse the earth of the wickedness of man. The message of God’s judgment against rampant evil is very clearly stated and understood in any translation. However, in order to comprehend the geological details concerning the flood, it is helpful, perhaps in this case essential, to read the Genesis text in the original Hebrew, and even then the context is not always as specific as one might like.
A good rule of Biblical interpretation is to analyze that which is less specific in the light of that which is more specific. As I mentioned in part one of this series, the Bible is very specific about the extent of the defilement of man’s sin and about God’s response. The defilement is limited to sinners, their progeny for several generations, birds and mammals which are part of their livelihood, their material possessions, and their agricultural land. Nowhere in the Bible do we see God’s meting out judgment beyond those limits. Hence, we can expect that if mankind had never visited Antarctica, God would not have struck that territory. The extent of the Genesis flood would be limited to the extent of the defilement of man’s sin. This interpretation is supported by the Genesis author’s choice of the Hebrew words for "creatures" destroyed by the flood, namely basar and nephesh.
In Genesis 7:4-12 we are told that the flood arose from the earth’s troposphere and from underground aquifers (not from some unknown place in outer space). These water resources are considerable, to be sure, but fall short of what verse 19 seems to require. According to Genesis 7:19, the waters "rose greatly" and all the high mountains under the entire earth were covered. The English translation seems to imply that even Mt. Everest was submerged under the flood waters. The Hebrew word for "high," however, simply means "elevated," and for "mountain" means anything from "a small hillock" to "a towering peak." The Hebrew verb for "covered" allows three alternatives: (1) inundated, (2) rained upon, or (3) washed over by as a rush of water. In any of these cases, 15 cubits of standing water, 15 cubits of sudden rainfall, or a 15-cubit rush of water, there would be no human or animal survivors.
Genesis 8 gives us the most significant evidence for a universal (with respect to man and his animals and lands), but not global, flood. The four different Hebrew verbs used in Genesis 8:1-8 to describe the receding of the waters indicate that these waters returned to their original sources. In other words, the waters of the flood are still to be found within the aquifers and troposphere and oceans of planet Earth. Since the total water content of earth is only 22 percent of what would be needed for a global flood, it appears that the Genesis flood could not have been global.
The argument I have heard most frequently against this conclusion is that before the flood, there were no high mountains or deep oceans. The present day relief of the earth’s surface is said to have been generated in a period of just a few months. I see several major problems with such a suggestion: 1) it contradicts a vast body of geological data; 2) it contradicts a vast body of geophysical data, at the same time requiring such cataclysmic effects as to render highly unlikely Noah’s survival in an ark; 3) it overlooks the geophysical difficulties of a planet with a smooth surface; and 4) it contradicts our observations of the tectonics. The mechanisms that drive tectonic plate movements have extremely long time constants, so that the effects of such a catastrophe would easily be measurable to this day. Since they are not, I conclude that the flood cannot be global.
As for the reference, "under the entire heavens," such expressions must always be understood in their context. What would constitute "under the entire heavens" for the people of Noah’s time? It would be the extent of their view from the entire region in which they existed or operated. Perhaps a verse from the New Testament will clarify my point. In Romans 1:8 the Apostle Paul declares that the faith of the Christians in Rome was being "reported all over the world." Since "all over the world" to the Romans meant the entire Roman Empire (and not the entire globe), we would not interpret Paul’s words as an indication that the Eskimos and Incas were familiar at the time with the activities of the church at Rome.
Further support for a regional, rather than global, cataclysm comes from consideration of God’s command to Noah after the flood, the same command He had given to Adam and later to the people who built the tower of Babel: "Fill the earth." The fact that God repeated this command to Noah (and intervened dramatically to disperse the people of Babel’s day) implies that the people of Noah’s generation had not filled the earth. This view is consistent with the geographical place names recorded in the first nine chapters of Genesis. They all refer to localities in or very close to Mesopotamia.
What does the geological data tell us about massive floods in the earth’s history? The evidence shows that the only place in the world where massive flooding has occurred since the advent of modern man is the region of Mesopotamia.
The Genesis account of the great flood is not an embarrassment for the Christian. We are not saddled with a contradiction between the established facts of science and the words of the Bible. Rather, we have one more set of objective evidences that the Bible is indeed inerrant, not just in matters of faith and practice, but in all disciplines including geology and history.
Does all this evidence for a regional flood mean that the Genesis flood was not universal? Not at all. Let me reiterate; the Genesis flood certainly was universal in that it destroyed all mankind and the animals associated with his livelihood except those on board Noah’s ark. Only in the twentieth century has "universal" been synonymous with "global." Global citizens, global corporations, and global wars are unique to this century.
Next, I will discuss the long life-spans of the pre-flood people.

A question you may have encountered—I certainly hear it often—has to do with the Biblical record of life spans on the order of 900+ years for many pre-flood people, including Methuselah, who is said to have lived 969 years. Many people wonder if the ancient "year" was the same as the modern year.
Let me begin by noting the the Bible is not alone in claiming life spans much longer than we can imagine. Taking into account their propensity for exaggeration, we can still draw some corroborative evidence from Mesopotamian records. Stories from the ancient Akkadian and Sumerian cultures declare that their most ancient kings lived thousands of years each. The "Weld-Blundell Prism," for example, written about 2170 B.C., speaks of eight pre-flood rulers each reigning for several thousand years.
Nothing in the Biblical context indicates that pre-flood years were significantly shorter than ours. References to agriculture indicate that the ancients counted years similarly to the way we do. Some early Mesopotamian records (circa 1500 B.C.) indicate a calendar of twelve months, each 30 days long. We have no record of any ancient society counting a shorter year. Further, it is clear that the Mesopotamians were aware that their twelve 30-day month fell short of a year by a little more than five days. Though there were variations from one society to another, the ancients typically celebrated a set of festival days every few years or so to make up the difference.
That the ante-diluvians lived much longer than we do seems borne out by God’s command to Adam to limit his diet to vegetables (Genesis 1:29) and by God’s giving permission to Noah after the flood to eat meat (Genesis 9:2-3). A diet which includes meat brings a sufficient concentration of heavy elements into the body as to prove life-threatening after a few hundred years. But, if no one lives past 120 years, this health threat becomes negligible (except in cases of extreme industrial pollution).
Another indication of long life spans for the ante-diluvians is the rapid advance of civilization described by the Biblical text. Nine hundred years gives plenty of time for an individual to make, develop, and exploit (in the positive sense) significant discoveries and then to pass his knowledge and experience on to future generations for their use and augmentation. Among post-flood peoples, archaeology attests to the effect of short life spans. The use of various metals, for example, frequently appeared and disappeared in the historical record.
Until recently, we had no scientific explanation as to how the pre-flood peoples could have lived so much longer than modern people can. Several canopy theories have been proposed, but none of them works. The hypothesized canopies would filter out some ultraviolet radiation, but they offer no effective mechanism for blocking out hard cosmic rays. These hard cosmic rays do far more to limit human lifespans than do ultraviolet rays.
In 1981 a possible explanation for the long lifetimes and the subsequent shortening of them (along a geometric curve) was unknowingly proposed. A paper entitled "Terrestrial Paleoenvironmental Effects of a Late Quaternary-Age Supernova" was published by geophysicist G. Robert Brakenridge in the journal Icarus (v. 46, pp. 81-93). Dr. Brakenridge describes measurements that date the Vela supernova as having occurred sometime between 9300 and 6400 B.C. (A supernova is the cataclysmic explosion of a massive star; this one is called the Vela supernova because it occurred in the Vela constellation.) These dates fit well with the Biblical date for the Genesis Flood.
Dr. Brakenridge also points out that this supernova occurred about three times closer to Earth than any other supernova event in human history. Thus, it is probably responsible for most of the cosmic rays that now come our way, cosmic rays which break down protein. Further, the Vela supernova would have affected the upper atmosphere in such a way as to bring about a global cooling and would have damaged the ozone layer so as to increase ultraviolet by two to ten times. Dr. Brakenridge documents geological evidence for both effects in the era between 8,000 and 9,000 B. C., also the time of the disappearance of some diatom and plankton species.
The Vela supernova may have been the means God used to shorten man’s life span from 900 years down to less than 120 years. I wish it were possible to be more definite, but there are reasons why I cannot be. First, no experiment has been performed on sustaining life in a low-radiation environment. Such an experiment would be difficult, to say the least. If we were to go deep enough underground to avoid the effects of cosmic rays, we would then begin to experience the far more damaging effects of increased radioactivity from exposure to radioactive elements in the earth’s crust. Another important experiment would be to expose advanced life to the equivalent of a nearby supernova event and to observe the consequences over several generations. However, this experiment would be even more difficult to perform.
Whether the Vela supernova offers a full, partial, or only a minor contribution to the shortening of man’s life span remains to be seen. Nonetheless it helps us to demonstrate that what has sometimes been considered a scientific and historical absurdity—the 900+ years of Methuselah and his peers—really does have scientific and historical plausibility.
In Part Four of this series focusing on answers to objections to the Genesis flood and the reliability of the Bible I will discuss the matter of rain before the flood and the rainbow Noah saw as he came off the ark.

Raining on a Misconception

One of the questions that comes up each time I speak on science and Genesis is this: Did rain fall upon the earth before the Flood? People wonder, too, whether or not the rainbow Noah saw was the very first rainbow. Apparently, many Christians have been taught that the earth’s cycle of evaporation and precipitation was very different from what it is today and that major atmospheric changes occurred at the time of the Flood.
This teaching is, I believe, part of a larger hypothetical scenario called the canopy theory, the point of which is to account somehow for "importation" of the water required for a global flood (water that is missing from the earth’s environs) and also to account for the drastic shortening of man’s life span after the Flood. (Both issues were just addressed in the last essay.)
According to the theory (more appropriately called a hypothesis), in the days before the Genesis Flood the earth supported a massive layer of water (either frozen or vaporous) high in the upper atmosphere. At the time of the Flood, the canopy is said to have melted or condensed at God’s command, thereby dumping the cataclysmic deluge on the earth’s surface.
Unfortunately, this popular scenario finds insufficient support from scripture and no support whatsoever from science. Let’s take a look at the biblical passages first. Genesis 2:5 speaks of a time when God had not yet sent rain upon the earth. What is the time context of this verse? It refers clearly to a time when the continents were still devoid of life. That is to say, it describes a period prior to the third creation day and to the establishment of our stable water cycle.
Genesis 2:6 comes after a punctuation break in the Hebrew and seems to refer to a later time when God caused "mist" (though a few translations say "streams") to water the ground. Apparently the ground at this point needed watering to support the flora and fauna. The Hebrew word used for "mist" in this verse is ’ed. Its normal translation is "mist" or "vapor," as in a fog. To translate it as "streams" is to stretch it to a rare and, in this case, inappropriate usage.
Technically, both mist and fog qualify as rain. Mist, fog, and rain all refer to drops of liquid water in the atmosphere. The distinction lies in the size of the drops, and that distinction is imprecise. Where I grew up in coastal British Columbia we called anything less that a downpour a mist.
Neither does the discussion of the rainbow as a covenant sign (Genesis 9) imply that rain and rainbows had never been seen before the time of Noah. When the Flood was over, God told Noah He would never again destroy all mankind and his animals by the waters of a flood. Then God designated the rainbow as His signature, a reminder, of this covenant (contractual agreement between God and man, initiated by God) not to repeat a watery judgment against man’s sin. It may be worth noting that the other eight covenants of scripture are signified with previously existing items or actions to which the covenant simply adds new meaning.
As for scientific analysis of the canopy theory, I must begin stating my belief that when God performs a miracle (and the operation of a canopy would have to be considered one, for it is outside the realm of naturally occurring phenomena), He does not deliberately cover up or distort the evidence to mislead us or to keep us from detecting it. What most Christians do not realize is that acceptance of the canopy theory requires acceptance of a massive cover-up by God. I cannot reconcile such action as consistent with the character of the God of the Bible.
From science we learn that no mechanism exists for supporting such a quantity of water (frozen or vaporous) in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. Neither is there a mechanism for protecting a canopy from destruction by meteorites and cosmic radiation.
A further problem is that when ice melts it uses up 80 calories of heat per gram. When vapor condenses it releases 539 calories of heat per gram. In other words, the melting or condensing of a canopy would have caused such massive temperature shifts on Earth that Noah and his crew could not possibly have survived. Backing it up a bit, if a canopy were vaporous, the greenhouse effect it would have engendered before the Flood would have trapped so much heat as to make life impossible on the surface of the earth.
These are only a few of the scientific difficulties with a canopy scenario, mostly theoretical. Physical counter-evidence is also available.
Geologists point to splash depressions in well-dated sandstone deposits, depressions caused by falling drops of liquid water. These splash patterns show that raindrops of all the sizes we see today have fallen throughout the last several geologic eras before the Flood.
The canopy theory represents yet another reminder to Christians that we need to submit our apologetics arguments to review by reputable non-Christian and Christian scholars in appropriate disciplines. If only scientists who are Christians attest to a particular physical phenomenon, especially one of such magnitude as the canopy, we have good reason to question its validity.

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