Pastoral Musings Thoughts, essays, and miscellanea…

The Genesis Flood And The Glory of God

(The Veracity of God’s Word)

1. Evidences for The Genesis Flood

   1. According to Dr. Duane Gish in his popular book Dinosaurs by Design, there are more than 270 such stories, most of which share a common theme and similar characters. So many flood stories with such similarities surely come from the Flood of Noah’s day. (www.answersingenesis.org Flood Legends)

   2. Why The Epic of Gilgamesh Does Not Undermine The Bible (Note: The Epic of Gilgamesh is a poem from the Babylonian area that was written near the 7^th century B.C. In it is depicted a story about a worldwide flood.)

      1. There are striking similarities between the two which point to a common source, which testimony from varied sources gives strong proof that there was an actual world-wide deluge.

      2. The Hebrew word translated “book” in Gen 5:1 actually refers to a written source from which Moses was getting some of his information (See TWOT) . The subject matter of Gen 5-11 is all related to Adam and his descendants. Thus, the flood account is actually a transcription of a much older record than many realize.

      3. Because Gilgamesh is polytheistic and Genesis is monotheistic, we conclude that Genesis is based upon an older account than Gilgamesh, because of evidence that monotheism (belief in only one God) preceded polytheism (belief in many gods). (See From Monotheism to Polytheism by Arthur Custance)

   3. Geological Evidences

      1. Providence Canyon is near the town of Lumpkin in southwest Georgia. Where there were once rolling hills covered with untouched pine forest, there is now a deep chasm with nine finger-like canyons. They range in size up to 50 metres (160 feet ) deep, 180 metres (600 feet) wide and 400 metres (1,300 feet) long.

         From the 1820s onward, clear-felling of trees (the roots of which deeply stabilize soil), to grow crops such as cotton and corn, set the scene for the start of rampant erosion, as the land was exposed to the ravages of water run-off during the area’s frequent heavy thunderstorms. The uppermost strata comprised the resistant iron-rich clay of the Clayton formation, and overlay the less resistant unconsolidated sands of the Providence and Ripley formations. Erosion accelerated once the water got beneath the red clay to the sands underneath.

      2. Back then, farmers did not preserve topsoil, or use fertilizers. Their habit was to exhaust the land with crops and then abandon it. By ploughing up and down hills, instead of across, they encouraged erosion gullies to form. Old people living in Lumpkin in the 1940s say they remember stepping over ditches only 1 to 1.5 metres (3 to 5 feet) deep on their way to school in the long-gone township of Humber in this area.

      3. Historical records show that the local Providence United Methodist church opened in 1832. The church had to be moved in 1859 because of the danger of being undermined by the growing canyon.

      4. Measurements taken between 1984 and 1994 confirm that the canyon is still growing mainly in width. Even now fences have to be relocated and roads rerouted because of these changes.

      5. So, it does not take millions of years for huge canyons to form—it just takes the right conditions. If it had not been seen to happen, hardly anyone would have believed it. Erosion after the global Flood would have been especially rapid through the still soft, freshly laid sediments. In fact, it has been documented in this magazine that erosion overall is happening so fast that the continents cannot be millions of years old or they would have all eroded away (www.answersingenesis.org Canyon Creation)

      6. Rapid burial is necessary to create fossils. Fossils are found all over the world. That could only have happened if there were a large, global catastrophe.

      7. Catastrophic evidences all over the world, such as marine fossils on crests of mountains.

      8. There is also evidence of recent bodies of water in present desert areas.

         (Nos. 6-8 from pg 685 The Genesis Record: Henry Morris; Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI)

1. Why This Is Important for Us to Consider

   1. Isaiah mentions it Isa 54:9 and considered it to be a true, historical account.

   2. Job (Job 12:15) the Psalmist (Ps 29:10;104:6-9) allude to the flood as the work of God.

   3. Jesus, the writer of Hebrews, and Peter (who mentioned it twice) considered it to be a true, historical account.

   4. Based upon Jesus’ and Peter’s usage of the flood account, to deny the flood is to deny future judgment.

   5. To deny the flood is to deny Jesus’ Divine nature. If He did not know that Noah’s flood didn’t really happen, He surely wasn’t God, who is omniscient. If He did know that the flood account was a myth and still referred to it as an actual, historical occurrence, He was not God, because He was being deceptive in leading people to believe an untruth.

   For information pertaining to the ark see:  Noah’s Ark Feasibility Study and Noah’s Ark Feasibility Study (PowerPoint Presentation)