Evidence for or against Global Flood

[thesometimesaint]

cinepro:

I believe the Scriptures to be the word of God, just not everyone's interpretation of them.

[erichard]

There is not one particle of evidence for a global flood.

The entire geologic record of the earth counts as evidence against a global flood.

...

Hi SilverKnight,

I am not sure myself if the flood was global or regional. I would like the Lord to reveal more about the matter.

Some believers say that the "firmament" spoken of in Genesis 1:6-8 refers to water up in the atmosphere that came down on the earth at the time of the flood. I definitely believe that catastrophic events occurred in the past on our earth, and all the changes have not been gradual. So this seems a possibility to me.

But I am also willing to consider scientific evidence over the matter. But some claim to be scientists and claim there is lots of evidence for a global flood. Are you a scientist? What do you think of the scientific evidences this site brings up?

Richard

[Tarski]

Evidence of tectonic plate shifting? There would have to be massive evidence, and there is, but sometimes science just filters it out.

Completely different. Plate tectonics was a new concept with unexplored implications. For a global flood, there would have to be massive evidence of very specific kinds. We have looked. We could no sooner filter that out than I could filter out the evidence that my house was under water while I was out.

The biblical global flood certainly did not take place --as certainly as the fact that earth did not have a poisonous methane and sulphuric acid atmosphere any time in the last 10,000 years.

[Ralph Man]

When all but a few members of a species die, their genome becomes highly homogeneous. That is to say, all the versions of the genetic material are about the same because they all come from only a few individuals. It takes time for mutations to work its way through generations to create diversity in the genome. Mutations happen at particular rates, not all at once. From this fact, we are able to infer when bottlenecks have occurred in a population, when all but a few members of a species died.

There was no such mass coinciding bottleneck in the populations of many of earth's living things at around the time the global flood was supposed to have taken place. In fact, many, many species' genomes are far too diverse to have diversified from just a few thousand years ago.

This is powerful evidence against a global flood. You might resolve this by appealing to God's ability to instantaneously diversify genomes, but if you are free to invoke God's magic in this instance you can do it in any. And if that's the case, you might as well be arguing that God created the universe a second ago with the appearance of age. It's ridiculously ad hoc to do that. And a invoking ridiculous ad hocs doesn't change the fact that some observation is evidence against an idea.

[Jeff K.]

Completely different. Plate tectonics was a new concept with unexplored implications. For a global flood, there would have to be massive evidence of very specific kinds. We have looked. We could no sooner filter that out than I could filter out the evidence that my house was under water while I was out.

The biblical global flood certainly did not take place --as certainly as the fact that earth did not have a poisonous methane and sulphuric acid atmosphere any time in the last 10,000 years.

Geology would be a new concept, but plate tectonics was within the realm and dismissed by the scientific community for quite some time.

There can be massive evidence that is simply missed because science or science in general filters it out. We see it quite often, and science is replete with such filtering. Pueperal fever being anothe such example. Scientists are the outcome of their society, whether they endorse eugenics as the future or dismiss cleaning between washings. So I am more of the mind that one can speak to evidence that favors, but not absolutisms since massive evidence is not always catorgized as such by scientists.

[Jeff K.]

When all but a few members of a species die, their genome becomes highly homogeneous. That is to say, all the versions of the genetic material are about the same because they all come from only a few individuals. It takes time for mutations to work its way through generations to create diversity in the genome. Mutations happen at particular rates, not all at once. From this fact, we are able to infer when bottlenecks have occurred in a population, when all but a few members of a species died.

There was no such mass coinciding bottleneck in the populations of many of earth's living things at around the time the global flood was supposed to have taken place. In fact, many, many species' genomes are far too diverse to have diversified from just a few thousand years ago.

This is powerful evidence against a global flood. You might resolve this by appealing to God's ability to instantaneously diversify genomes, but if you are free to invoke God's magic in this instance you can do it in any. And if that's the case, you might as well be arguing that God created the universe a second ago with the appearance of age. It's ridiculously ad hoc to do that. And a invoking ridiculous ad hocs doesn't change the fact that some observation is evidence against an idea.

I think you are wrong in the sense that it is powerful evidence against a global flood, rather it is powerful evidence against a global flood "at that time". A different matter entirely.

[cinepro]

Genesis 6

19 And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.

20 Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.

So, can someone help me understand why non-food animals (including birds and insects) would need to be taken into an ark for a regional flood?

[Jeff K.]

Good food pyramid?

[blackstrap]

Depends on how big the region was. Pangea perhaps?

[Jason]

Jason has an interesting interpretation of this verse, but it's definitely a minority view. A quick survey shows the majority of LDS commentators believe the plain reading is that of lands on this planet:

• Milton R. Hunter, Pearl of Great Price Commentary (Bookcraft, 1972), entry for Moses 1:29.
  
• Reynolds and Janne M. Sjodahl, Commentary on the Pearl of Great Price (Deseret Book, 1969), entry for Moses 1:29.
  
• Richard Draper and S. Kent Brown, The Pearl of Great Price: A Verse-by-verse Commentary (Deseret Book, 2005), entry for Moses 1:29.
  
• Hugh W. Nibley, Teachings of the Pearl of Great Price (Provo, UT: FARMS), p. 225.
  

Even the LDS Scriptures (LDS.org) footnote for this verse cross-references us to TG, Earth, dividing of

For the record, I side with the authors above and think it evident that this verse refers to lands on this planet, each called "earth." As Nibley, Draper and Brown point out, this usage of "earth" squares with the Hebrew use of eretz. This does not refer to planets in the universe.

Also, for the record, Jason has a right to interpret any verse he wants differently than the majority of LDS scholars. I do it myself in some instances. But when I do I try not to be dogmatic that I have to be right.

Cheers.

I don't have any of those books. Care to summarize their reasoning for ruling out the idea that Moses was shown a glimpse of other worlds? Or did they address the possibility at all, or merely theorize what was meant without considering this option?

[cinepro]

Depends on how big the region was. Pangea perhaps?

I willing to bet that 100% of the people who believe in a regional flood do not believe the Earth was in its "Pangeatial" form around 2500 BC.

And so far, no one has ever dared suggest an actual area for a regional flood. It's critical that the size of the region be adjustable as needed to keep the theory as unfalsifiable as possible.

[J Green]

I don't have any of those books. Care to summarize their reasoning for ruling out the idea that Moses was shown a glimpse of other worlds? Or did they address the possibility at all, or merely theorize what was meant without considering this option?

Hi, Jason.

Can't tell what the authors were thinking on this issue. Most of them simply give the explanation without discussing it in detail. For example:

Nibley:

"And he beheld many lands; and each land was called earth [at that time the world was divided into separate lands, not in contact with each other at all, separate earths; of course

eretz

is the Hebrew word for all of them] and there were inhabitants on the face thereof."

Milton R. Hunter:

Moses' Vision of God's Creations; Moses 1:7

[blackstrap]

It is pretty clear from Moses 1. that the Lord showed Moses about the earth upon which he,Moses,lived. However, Moses 1:10 suggests more was seen. Why would Moses say that he knows that "man is nothing"? He had lived in a populous state and knew of other populous nations.Why would being shown a bunch more people in other areas convince him about anything except that man is spread all over the earth? If man is spread all over the earth then it would seem that man is "really something"

[thesometimesaint]

blackstrap:

At the time of Moses the earths' population was well less than a billion people with the main cultural centers along the Nile, Tigris/Euphrates, Indus, and southern China river valleys.

[J Green]

It is pretty clear from Moses 1. that the Lord showed Moses about the earth upon which he,Moses,lived. However, Moses 1:10 suggests more was seen. Why would Moses say that he knows that "man is nothing"? He had lived in a populous state and knew of other populous nations.Why would being shown a bunch more people in other areas convince him about anything except that man is spread all over the earth? If man is spread all over the earth then it would seem that man is "really something"

Hi, Blackstrap.

I see two problems with your analysis:

1. Up through verse 10, what Moses has seen has only been "the world upon which he was created" (v. 8 ).

2. The proximate cause for his wonder about the status of man in his relation to God appears rather to be the fact that God's presence leaves and his glory withdraws, leaving Moses spent on the ground (v. 9). It seems to me that Moses' recognition of God's glory and presence is the proximate cause of his wonder (v. 10) that man is nothing. You see him using this train of thought when Satan shows up: "Where is thy glory?" he says (v. 13). He is still on the same thought of God's presence and glory leaving him, establishing that without this glory man (and Satan) is nothing.

Thoughts?