The biblical and scientific evidence against a universal catastrophic flood is virtually an open and shut case. Only when one takes a literal interpretation in the English language could one possibly conclude the flood was universal. The Hebrew is clear that the flood was not universal or global in nature. The use of the word "world" also seems to indicate that Moses was not talking of a global event, but speaking of the flood in the sense of the known world.
The scientific evidence against the flood being global is overwhelming. We do have evidence of a catastrophic event that wiped out the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago. The evidence that exists for an asteroid impact is clear in the impact site (Yucatan, Mexico area) and the layer which contains iridium (a rare element found in abundance in asteroids) the world over. If the flood were global in nature and relatively recent, wouldn't you expect to find a mountain of evidence for its occurrence? The simple fact is no evidence for a global catastrophic flood can be found anywhere in the rock record.
The flood of Noah does appear to be a local or regional event. Whether or not all mankind was wiped out during this flood is a subject of a different debate. There is evidence of a flood that occurred 7,600 years ago in the region of the Black Sea. Perhaps this local flood is, in fact, the flood of Noah.*
* Svitil, Kathy, Forty days and forty nights, more or less, (Discover, January 1999), p. 69
No comments:
Post a Comment