I frequently hear people trot out “reasons” why the Noahic Flood account in Genesis can’t be literal or global. I just have to scratch my head.
If you claim to believe the Bible, then you need to take the Bible’s view on the Noahic Flood: There is no place anywhere in the Bible that treats any account in Genesis as mythical, hyperbolic, parabolic, non-literal or anything less than literal truth. Flood included. The Bible consistently treats the Noahic account (and every other story in Genesis) as factual history in every single detail. Invoking screwball definitions of “not the whole world” or “the world as they knew it” shows that one has not sat down to consider what the text actually says. More on this later.
Consider the following:
Jesus claimed to be God. If He is, then He knows all the intimate details of anything that ever happened in all of eternity. If He spoke of the flood as literal (which He did), then we have a duty to take it every bit as literally as He took it. To do less would be to trivialize (insult, blaspheme, etc) His omniscience and deity. Matt 24:36-44. Luke 17:26-27
* The Bible doesn’t bother to record which animals were put in the ark. Nor does it state how old those animals were. If they were pups and eggs, it’d be a non-issue. Remember that Gen 9 (cf Gen 1) says all animals were all herbivores up till that time. (btw, for bonus points, compare that idea the future Millennial kingdom in Is 65 & 66. It’s a different thread of yours, Bryan, but it’s related)
* Jesus was not the only person to treat the flood account as literal.
Job 22:15-17
1 Pet 3:20-21
2 Pet 2:5-6
Just to name a few.
* All of these passages (including Jesus’ passage in Matt 24) state that God destroyed the whole world and saved only Noah. They use these passages as literal history to springboard to larger issues: Particularly the consistency of God in dealing (judging/destroying) wicked people. Please explain to me: how on earth does it make ANY sense to comfort/encourage people that God is faithful to judge/destroy wicked people when ExhibtA in your argument is a FALSE HISTORICAL NARRATIVE??!! (that’s about as genius as trying to convince people that you will walk through walls one day: “C’mon folks – trust me. haven’t you ever read about Casper the Friendly Ghost?” Only a fool would use a fable to argue in favor of a future certainty. And I doubt these authors are fools.
* Hebrews lists Noah in the Faith Hall of Fame. Either the author of Hebrews is an idiot for including a fictional event in his book of Faith Heroes, or it’s a literal event and you guys need to lay off the Magic KookAid.
* Re-read the flood account in Gen 6-9 and picture as much of it as possible. Consider the following:
- Every mountain was covered. How, pray tell, does that happen in a local flood? Each and every local flood ALWAYS has mountains or hills as borders of the flood waters. Only in a global flood do you not have mountains (or hills) to constrain and localize any flooding.
- If God was supernatural enough to make it rain like that; bring all the animals in like that; destroy with such destruction like that .. I think He’d know whether or not the whole earth was flooded like that.
- Plot out the events on a timeline. The flood waters covered the whole world for *over* a year. This cannot happen in a local flood. Period. (re-read Point A if you doubt it. And consider that one year of bobbing about like flotsam would eventually bump you into some land (mountain) somewhere. Read up on Kon Tiki if you doubt it. And that was the Pacific Ocean! Far larger than any dim-witted Mediterranean local-flood theory. No mountains appeared until ~11 months after the rain. Impossible with a local flood.)
- God promised He would never flood the earth like that again. If Noah’s flood was a local flood, then God broke His “eternal covenant” because there have been lots of local floods since. Yet there are still rainbows (if you don’t know what that means, please read Gen 9)
If the Bible consistently only views the Noahic account as a historical fact, then we have a duty to explain why we part company with the Holy Spirit.
Take it from Jesus: Scripture cannot be broken. (oh.. and He was quoting Psalms when He said that)
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Bear in mind that 2 Peter 3 warns us that it is the unbelieving scoffers who, in the last days, deny the Genesis Creation account and the Genesis Flood account. They mock the promised Judgmental coming of the Lord.
One wonders: Why would Peter warn us about that?
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