Considering Genesis says that Noah's flood covered "the entire land" [ERETZ] & not "entire planet", why do....?
.....so many Christians insist on holding on to a man-made tradition of a GLOBAL FLOOD? ====================================== OPTIONAL RELATED QUESTIONS: After all, Noah's Ark wasn't big enough to manage the animal "kinds" of the entire planet -- but it COULD have accommodated all of the animals which Noah would have needed to restock his region of the world. Indeed, virtually every issue which conflicts with a global flood disappears when the Hebrew text is translated literally and one accepts that Genesis is describing a huge flood that wipes out Noah's homeland. And most Christians agree that humans occupied only a small part of the earth's land mass at that time -- and again after the Flood when the Tower of Babel incident finally scattered the human population. So wouldn't a regional flood be sufficient for judging all humans alive at that time?
How much water would you need to cover the entire world?
If you want to cover the entire globe with water you will need enough to cover the top of the highest mountain which is Mt Everest. If you want to spare one continent, it would have to be Asia as they have the highest mountains. The highest mountain outside Asia is Acongagua in Argentina at 6962m. If you only want one continent left, and we have agreed it must be Asia then you will need enough water to cover Mt Aconcagua. The surface area of the earth is 510072000 km2 so to cover Mt Aconcagua, you will need 510072000 * 6.962 or 3,551,121,264 cubic kilometres of water. Which is rather a lot. It will actually be a bit more than that as the surface area of the water flooding Mt Aconcagua will be somewhat larger than the original surface area 6.962km below it. But I wouldn't worry too much about that. We can compensate for that extra water by remembering the land surfaces that will be sticking up into it. Added; The volume of water currently on the planet (freshwater, saltwater, ice and water vapour) is about 1,300,000,000 cubic kilometres. To raise the water level 6.962 kilometres you would need to add nearly three times the water currently on the planet. Fortunately, it isn't there to be added.
Speaking of Noah's Flood, does a flood necessarily have to cover every hill and mountain?
When I was living near Mt Rainier in WA state, a piece of the glacier broke and went downstream and broke through 2 dams, the last one held. If it had broken all of them we would have had 30 minutes to evacuate every home in that valley because it would have flooded up to 50 feet, including mud. If a Flood is anything starting from 15-20 feet above... why would Noah's Flood need to cover Mt Everest? Why would the earth not have enough water to flood at least 1000 ft up? Remember, this probably happened during one of the warming of the ice-ages. Even Chicago, Illinois and the great lakes areas were 5 feet under water for a couple million years, is that a flood? WHAT constitutes a FLOOD? WOuld a Flood have to be at least 6 feet deep for a few months to kill humans? I mean, what's the criteria here?
If Noah's flood covered all the mountains on Earth, would you be able to breathe way up there? Would the air up there be temporarily normal?
A2A The mountains that exist today are not the mountains or high hills that existed before the flood. If all the landmass on today’s world were leveled out there would be a water depth of almost 2 miles. That certainly is sufficient water to destroy the world that then was. In addition to the rain during the flood the fountains of the great deep were broken up, water was coming from beneath the surface. One cause of this was probably a cracking of the crust which resulted in runaway subduction of dense ocean floors. As this subduction occurred the continents would have broken and moved rather quickly until the new and cooler ocean floor gradually brought this process to a virtual halt such as it is today. That continental drift is what created the mountains we have today which are composed of sediments that were laid down during the earlier stages of that flood. Therefore the sea level would not be drastically different from what it is today. The new ocean floor was also volcanic material which greatly warmed the ocean and increased evaporation so that there was a greatly increased precipitation which led to the Ice Age. As the oceans cooled precipitation lessened and the Ice Age receded just as it continues to do today.The Institute for Creation ResearchSetting the Stage for an Ice AgeContinental Drift, Plate Tectonics, and the BibleThe video below explains the flood, continental drift and Ice age;
Is the story of Noah and the great flood an exaggerated story that really happened?
Some problems with the Noah myth... 1 - The bible said the mountain tops would be covered by 20 feet of water. Everest is 29,000 feet tall so the flood would have to be 5.5 miles deep. There isn't even close to enough water in the entire world. 2 - If the ark had been floating at that altitude, the temperature would have been around -50C. Noah and the animals would have frozen to death. 3 - If everything was covered over by so much water there would be evidence of it everywhere in the world. There isn't. 4 - How big would the ark have to have been to house *millions* of species and enough food and fresh water to sustain them? 5 - How did Noah create the required arctic, tropical, desert, maritime, freshwater, saltwater etc environments needed by the different species? 6 - If there were only 8 humans on the ark why do we have such a diversity of races in the world? 7 - How could the 8 humans on the ark prepare and put out food for *millions* of creatures every day? 8 - According to that story god killed very nearly every living thing on earth including almost the entire human population. Does that sound like a loving, forgiving god to you or someone who is worthy of worship? 9 - The story is based on earlier Babylonian and Sumerian myths so it isn't even Judeo-Christian in origin (see Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh or the Akkadian story of Atrahasis). 10 - All the vegetation in the world would have been submerged under miles of water, cut off from light, oxygen and carbon dioxide, so it would all have died and the carbon cycle would have been disrupted and the production of oxygen ceased, suffocating those left on the ark. 11 - After the flood there would only have been two of each species. So what did all the predators eat? 12 - Rainbows are not a sign from god that he won't flood the earth again. They are simply light being refracted through moisture in the atmosphere, a common phenomenon that can also be seen at waterfalls, at the sea and so on. 13 - Various groups have claimed to have found the ark at *different* sites around the middle-east. Not one of them has provided evidence or been verified. 14 - Noah is supposed to have been 600 years old when he built the ark. Humans don't live that long.
Do you believe that the world was flooded once as said on the bible?
NOT EXACTLY... The main reason being, is that the WORLD of the Old Testament was Mesopotamia, and it is also true that the Tigris & the Euphrates Rivers did overflow about 6700 years ago, due to an overflow from the Black Sea. Mud-core samples bear this out! The Sumerians had the same "Flood Story" as the Hebrews, which was recorded in writing, many years after the event. However, it is quite a jump, to say that the entire physical earth was flooded, when even if the Polar Ice Caps melted, water levels would only rise 244' (And they didn't melt 6700 years ago)... Meanwhile, Mount Everest was still 29,000'+, 6700 years ago, so to believe that the entire physical world had enough water to be covered by water, approaches fantasy-thinking! Where would all of this extra water come from, and where did it all go to?
If Noah's Ark was higher than all the mountains, why didn't the animals freeze or die from hypoxia?
This is not my question but a question which one of you asked me in an E-mail: Message: genesis7:19 "And the water prevailed more and more upon the land, so that all the high hills everywhere under the sky were covered." This necessarily must include Mt. Everest as well. This means that the flood waters were over 29000 ft above current sea levels! This is therefore the minimum oceanic surface level that the ocean would have been during Noah's flood; at that altitude all of the animals on the arc would have either frozen to death or died from hypoxia. How do you explain this? Thanks I tried explaining to him that the Ark was always at sea level so that hypoxia and freezing which would happen at 29,000 above sea level today, would not have happened then. However this person does not seem to understand. Perhaps you can help explain it better than I did.