Noah’s Ark From Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels (2014)
Creation Book Publishers

One thing I like about the image above is that it has steam.  That water would have been scalding hot at first and then cooled as the dirt is mixed in with it and the clouds form quickly overhead (all around the world). 

I’d like for the water to be muddier in the picture, though, and maybe have a tree or two floating by. But this is one of my favorite depictions of the Ark right now. Honestly, I think the fog would have been much thicker; too thick to see this far.

(Artist unknown to me at this time—nice work, whoever you are.) 

Chapter Three | the flood  

Pre-flood Civilizations

As you will see in this description of the worldwide flood, it is completely impossible for any trace, vestige, sign, hint, remnant, evidence, mark, or record (other than the Bible) of human existence to survive it. All life was literally wiped from the surface of the Earth, while the surface was being churned and cooked. Destruction was very quick, merciful, and certain.

This goes for any, and I do mean ANY type of structures, buildings, cities, or anything else. No roads scarring the landscape either. Not one tiny little bit of evidence that there were even people on Earth before the flood. Not one stick or stone. Nothing. You’ll see why.

The Narrative

If I’m going to go on about the Bible being the best narrative of the world before, during, and after the flood, I should probably share with the reader what that is, shouldn’t I? And I’ll say a word or two about the text as we go along.

When everything was ready, the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the boat with all your family, for among all the people of the earth, I can see that you alone are righteous. Take with you seven pairs—male and female—of each animal I have approved for eating and for sacrifice, and take one pair of each of the others. Also take seven pairs of every kind of bird. There must be a male and a female in each pair to ensure that all life will survive on the earth after the flood. Seven days from now I will make the rains pour down on the earth. And it will rain for forty days and forty nights, until I have wiped from the earth all the living things I have created.”

So Noah did everything as the Lord commanded him.

(Genesis 7:1-5)

Notice that it talks about “kinds” of animals? If the colleges cared about being biblical, they’d use this term. But since they’re stubborn about that kind of thing, the closest we can get to the biblical “kind” in biology today is the “family”. So if you already have a framework in your mind based on the schools’ classifications, just think, “family” when the Bible talks about “kind”. The idea is that the animals are breeding pairs that can produce the species that we see today (or since extinct). “Dog” and “cat” are examples of “kinds”. There are many varieties of each, but all the varieties can mate with each other and produce offspring that can also reproduce. Also, dogs and cats cannot interbreed with each other. A hybrid of cat and dog is not possible, biologically.

Notice too, that God “wiped from the Earth” its previous life. I take this absolutely in a most literal sense. In my model, the ground was removed from under the people and other life on the surface. All plants, birds, animals, insects, and people lost their lives within probably one hour of each other globally, as the water stripped the bedrock bottom of the Crust Layer of all of its soil and life.  Yes, they were literally wiped from the Earth’s Crust Layer, along with its soil.

Noah was 600 years old when the flood covered the earth.  He went on board the boat to escape the flood—he and his wife and his sons and their wives.  With them were all the various kinds of animals—those approved for eating and for sacrifice and those that were not—along with all the birds and the small animals that scurry along the ground.  They entered the boat in pairs, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah.  After seven days, the waters of the flood came and covered the earth. 

(Genesis 7: 6-10, NLT)

So we see a grand total of eight people surviving the great breaking of the Earth and cleansing of humanity. Estimates of the Earth’s population are in the millions at the time. They took 14 sheep (for example) onto the Ark, but only 2 “wolves” (dog-kind) and 14 of each bird.

Jewish Religious Law, called “halakha” by Orthodox Jewish adherents, discusses what it calls “clean” and “unclean” animals. Clean animals are those that are approved for food and sacrifice; unclean are those that are not. 

Having such a large number of sheep-like (ovine) and cow-like (bovine) animals alone would have been plenty of food for Noah and his family (post-flood). But they also had chickens and other fowl for eggs and meat (since meat is on the table now). I’m guessing that the family had a bunch of seeds onboard too—maybe fruiting plants? After all, Noah was a 600-year-old vegetarian. I’ll bet he had potted plants on board—maybe even fruiting, at that. I mean he had to think of more than just what food to take onboard for the journey, but what food to grow once their new life was under way. And seedlings would be appropriate. 

The idea that there were only two of each animal is wrong. Clean animals (livestock for food and sacrifice), and all birds, were much more numerous (14 each) than the unclean (2 each).

I find it interesting that Noah knew about these distinctions before the Law of Moses came some 1,072 years later. This tells me that some of the laws of Moses were instituted by God prior to Moses’ receipt of the Law, in circa 2,729 anno mundi (AM; year of Earth). (According to my studies, Moses was born in 2,649 AM.)

Incest

Before going any further, and since I just mentioned the Law of Moses, I should talk quickly about incest. You know, incest is a brother and sister having children together. 

One of the more prevalent objections to the Bible’s narrative is that it depends upon this practice that it also bans.

“Why did Adam and Eve’s children (however many there were) have children together?” 

“Because they had no one else to conceive with.”

“Well then, why did God say that it’s against His law later?” 

Because the sin that man introduced into their DNA brings with it entropy, which ensures that each generation of DNA information is degraded just a little bit. And the more alike the parents’ DNA is to each other, the more rapid or pronounced the breakdown. 

In Noah’s day, twins (a boy and a girl) could have had perfectly normal children together, because their gene pool was just that deep back then, unlike ours now. If I were God (ha ha), I’d have made girls in pairs at first, to really move things along. But it was normal to mate with siblings for a very long part of human history (2.5 millennia). Only with the Jewish Law did it become forbidden, when it was no longer necessary or good (becoming a detriment to our health because of decay).

Backstory

[Adam and Eve’s children] began to multiply on the earth, and daughters were born to them. The sons of God saw the beautiful [daughters] and took any they wanted as their wives.  Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not put up with humans for such a long time, for they are only mortal flesh. In the future, their normal lifespan will be no more than 120 years.”

(Genesis 6:1-3, NLT)

This passage is just packed with controversy.

First, we have the “sons of God” checking out how beautiful the men’s wives, daughters, and sisters were. Who are these “sons of God”? Well, according to other ancient documents, scrolls, books, or accounts, they were angels who were charged with overseeing or watching the humans. Their title is often given as “Watchers”. 

In another place, the Bible talks about them getting a special punishment by being thrown immediately into the Abyss (prison for bad angelic beings). 

Here’s a quick side note:

For God did not spare even the angels who sinned. He threw them into hell [Tartarus], in gloomy pits of darkness, where they are being held until the day of judgment. And God did not spare the ancient world—except for Noah and the seven others in his family. Noah warned the world of God’s righteous judgment. So God protected Noah when he destroyed the world of ungodly people with a vast flood. Later, God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and turned them into heaps of ashes. He made them an example of what will happen to ungodly people. But God also rescued Lot [a man] out of Sodom [a city] because he was a righteous man who was sick of the shameful immorality of the wicked people around him. [They were sodomists—practitioners of anal copulation, (especially male on male).] 

Yes, Lot was a righteous man who was tormented in his soul by the wickedness he saw and heard day after day. So you see, the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while keeping the wicked under punishment until the day of final judgment. He is especially hard on those who follow their own twisted sexual desire, and who despise authority.

(2 Peter 2:4-10, NLT)

So the story goes that angelic beings had somehow mated with human women, making a kind of angelic/human hybrid super race. God was not happy about this, if true. Either way, it seems that God managed two judgments at once: the angels went to a hellish place, while the Earth and nearly all of humanity and other air-breathing life was obliterated by Him directly. They could have both been sanctioned simultaneously.

In those days, and for some time after, giant Nephilites lived on the earth, for whenever the sons of God had intercourse with women, they gave birth to children who became the heroes and famous warriors of ancient times.

The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.  So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart.  And the Lord said, “I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth. Yes, and I will destroy every living thing—all the people, the large animals, the small animals that scurry along the ground, and even the birds of the sky. I am sorry I ever made them.”  But Noah found favor with the Lord.

(Genesis 6:4-8, NLT)

The angelic-human hybrids were called Nephilites, or Nephilim. (J.R.R. Tolkien’s elves may have resembled them perhaps. Others might say that they were more troll-like.) Some think they were actual giants (as tall as 30 feet by some claims). Who knows for sure? Nobody. It’s all guesswork when it comes to this topic. And it’s a sideline topic at best. 

Want a juicy tale? How about this one: The Lord threw the Watchers into the center of the Earth, crashing them right through the Crust and Mantle, breaking and wreaking havoc on Earth, killing almost all life. 

It isn’t in the Bible and I just made it up, but it’s as good of an explanation as any right now. The bottom line is that God killed nearly all humanity and every other life-form that breathes air. He did that because He was not happy with mankind and their violent and sexually perverse behavior. 

The Story of Noah

This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless person living on earth at the time, and he walked in close fellowship with God.  Noah was the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Now God saw that the earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence.  God observed all this corruption in the world, for everyone on earth was corrupt. So God said to Noah, “I have decided to destroy all living creatures, for they have filled the earth with violence. Yes, I will wipe them all out along with the earth!

“Build a large ark [‘box’] from Gopher wood and waterproof it with tar, inside and out. Then construct decks and stalls throughout its interior.  Make the boat 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.  Leave an 18-inch opening below the roof all the way around the boat. Put the door on the side, and build three decks inside the boat—lower, middle, and upper.

 “Look! I am about to cover the earth with a flood that will destroy every living thing that breathes. Everything on earth will die.  But I will confirm my covenant with you. So enter the boat—you and your wife and your sons and their wives.  Bring a pair of every kind of animal—a male and a female—into the boat with you to keep them alive during the flood.  Pairs of every kind of bird, and every kind of animal, and every kind of small animal that scurries along the ground, will come to you to be kept alive.  And be sure to take on board enough food for your family and for all the animals.”

So Noah did everything exactly as God had commanded him.

(Genesis 6:9-22, NLT)

This tells us that God destroyed Earth because of man’s wickedness. It also hints at a problem with race purity, since the fallen angels allegedly got busy with the human girls (not knowing how that works, exactly). 

God killed every animal that breathes air on planet Earth (not in the sea). He killed every man, woman, and child on Earth too—except for those eight and the beasts in their care. 

Notice that the animals came to Noah’s family. They didn’t have to go find or round up anything. I would expect them to have stalls, cages, barns, or fenced-in areas near the Ark to keep them in until ready to board. 

This Ark has the same basic proportions as an oil tanker; not the same size, but about the same proportions. It was made to be seaworthy in its shape and construction. It had a roof built on with a small (18-inch) horizontal window, gap, or slit along the wall at the roofline all the way around. 

Ark Capacity

If you are wondering if the Ark was big enough to hold so many animals and their food and water, you may rest assured that there was plenty of room in the Ark for all that it held. 

The average size of everything on the Ark is pretty much a sheep size. And since Noah was only loading “kinds” of animals, not all of the different “species”, it wasn’t such a high number after all. (It just occurred to me that Darwin’s finches could have all been represented in the Ark, since there were 7 pairs of them onboard. And who says there couldn’t have been some variety already in many of the pairs received by Noah and crew?)

They didn’t have to take full-sized adults; juveniles would do, since they would be onboard for a year anyway. I’ll bet that more mice and rabbits came off than went on—just saying. This is another reason to take the younger animals that aren’t at breeding age yet. Otherwise, leave room for growth, I guess. I’d suppose that all animals have the ability to enter into a deep sleep for extended periods of time (guessing). Certainly, God could induce such a thing on any being (not guessing). However, this doesn’t mean that the animals had to be hibernating. God told Noah to take enough food for the animals. That implies being awake.

Were dinosaurs on the Ark? Absolutely. Any animal that breathed air needed to be onboard. The dinos were there. Personally, I’d put the amphibians and other water lovers down in the bottom deck, where water would be more likely to accumulate as it sloshed in through the window and ran down inside to the bilge, under the bottom deck. 

Maybe the birds were all on the top deck, since they’re smaller and lighter? And maybe the important animals—the livestock or “clean” animals—were on the middle level? Have fun and see the Ark in your mind and how the eight people took care of them in their sections. It’s all totally plausible. Skeptics are the ones with no imagination or ability to do the math. Guys a lot smarter than me have done the math and know that there was more than enough room. 

The Global Flood 

When Noah was 600 years old, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the underground waters erupted from the earth, and the rain fell in mighty torrents from the sky.  The rain continued to fall for forty days and forty nights.

(Genesis 7:11-12, NLT)

What caused the breakup? He didn’t show me that. One thing that is interesting though is how Iceland is a cap on a shaft that seems to go to the very deepest part of the Mantle. It’s like an opening that goes deeper than anything else. Maybe that is where a meteorite or other object punched through the Crust and also broke the Mantle (like a bullet)? Who knows?

“Underground waters” would be my proposed Water Layer. They erupted from under the Crust Layer because the Crust Layer was broken and pushed the water out as it fell. Saying “the rain fell in mighty torrents” is probably an understatement. There is no way to accurately capture the scale of the storms upon the planet at that time. It had to be an all-over storm. Hang on; I’ll get to the rain.

An initial explosion sent water, water vapor or steam, ash, smoke, dirt and debris high into the atmosphere (or beyond) to fall back as rain, while the entire earth reeled from a massive earthquake. It shot high into the sky very quickly but fell back to Earth more slowly. But before the drops, rocks, and debris could hit anyone on the head, they were already in the ground, quite dead.  

Example of an eruption; a very tiny one, compared to the explosion of Earth, traveling all around the planet (in two directions).

It was an explosion that travelled around the globe…

…followed by everything “land” falling out from under everything upon it, being rapidly replaced by surging, searing, steaming, scalding, suffocating water, becoming sludge, becoming water. Throw in some lightening and deafening thunder, or thunderous noises. Then all goes gray above the churning surface as visibility goes from clear to zero in nothing flat from the smoke, ash, steam, fog, clouds, and rain that quickly cover the entire planet. Even when the winds reach gale forces and beyond, your hands would be invisible to your eyes. All life is gone in minutes worldwide and the rains begin with great fury right away. Rain like the world has never seen since. There was likely little or no rain to speak of before this on Earth. But now the emerging water from the depths is so hot that the rain is practically flying upward in the steam. Indeed, liquid water does fly at first and continues for a bit afterward. This heat is enormous. No mortal creature, of flesh or plant, of land or air, had any hope of surviving the first 5 minutes of this colossal cataclysm. Birds that could escape the earth falling out from under them could not escape the deadly heat blast, or either drowned or burned midair, or fell to the churning, scalding sea. The atmosphere would have been hot for a short time there, as great heat escapes from under ground and water. But it would have begun to cool almost as rapidly, I believe.

This eruption likely started in one location (Iceland?) breaking rifts in the Crust Layer all around the world (the cracks we see in Google Earth—the Tectonic Plates that everything rides on). Imagine a blast like this ripping its way around the world, cutting those lines that are now at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean floor. They cut southward, and also northward from Iceland (now) across the North Pole, then through Asia and the Pacific southward. Then the crack spread from there to everywhere on Earth, very rapidly. As it broke under pressure, the explosion sent dirt, ash, smoke, and water high into the atmosphere to block out the sun’s heat for weeks. It rained rocks, dirt, ash, and water from the smoke and clouds.

That isn’t the rain that lasted for 40 days though; it’s only the first rainfall. The real rain started to fall because the water escaping the Crust was so hot. All of that hot water under a cooler and cooling sky was the perfect combination for a deluge we cannot even imagine today. It only took hours (if not minutes) for the storms to grow, and weeks for them to stop, especially with the high humidity worldwide at the time it started.

There is great turbulence caused on Earth’s surface from the bedrock, deep under the soil, fracturing and falling over a mile, maybe two, downward into the Water Layer below. Swirling currents in the soil and the air and the water are like giant eggbeaters as everything goes crashing down with much turbulence.  The ground is turning into mud and water. All land life is being blended together into a hot, muddy, glob of boiling goop. Some sea life miraculously survives. All sea life was already living on top of the falling bedrock and soil, but it was turbulent and dangerous everywhere during the flood. Much sea life died. Tsunamis of hot mud take entire aquatic biomes by surprise, engulfing them like ants being rolled into dough. The Water Layer it’s falling into was likely in quick motion already, with much inertia. Then, add in the explosive blast’s impact on all of that water, rock, lava, and soil. Turbulence may have been incalculable. Take that as a challenge, physicists.

Air and water are instantly in motion around the world from the explosion. The world exploded and broke apart, sending pieces of the Crust deep into the water and onto, even into the ruptured Mantle below.  Above surface, on the heels of the initial up-blast, comes the downward airflow that soon becomes a sideways airflow at the churning surface, and then magnifies with the updrafts of the heat from the scalding muddy waters of destruction, becoming swirls of water and air; vortices of fury, with winds far above 100 MPH, and water currents almost as fast. The wind and water currents are fierce. Tornadoes and other vortices are going nuts instantly with the sinking of the land and the rising of the storm with what was once the Water Layer. Soon, the only forces checking the churning waves are more waves in opposing motions. Ditto for the raging air currents as well.

We kind of know what such turbulent weather looks like on a much smaller and calmer scale. Floridians and others in the world have experienced hurricanes for decades or centuries. We just have never seen it on that scale and intensity before, all over the planet at once. On our current scale of 1-5 it would have been a category 100! And Richter couldn’t have made a scale for that earthquake that removed all land, replacing it with hot water.

Now, the Bible doesn’t say this, but I just know that a huge earthquake was felt all over the planet when the Crust broke away from the blast zones. The biggest ever, with no equal possible. How could it not? I mean the ground literally fell out from under everyone; gobbling and chewing them up as it was falling apart and sinking! There is no running to higher ground when all of the ground is falling out together. And doing so faster than anyone could get away from it. And it wouldn’t matter since it’s happening everywhere at once. Literally, there was nowhere to go but down to death’s muddy, boiling grip. Birds take flight with nowhere to land, which is just as well, since they’ll probably die midair anyway from heat or debris or waves or drowning (yes, birds drowning as they fly through the water-drenched air).

That very day Noah had gone into the boat with his wife and his sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—and their wives. With them in the boat were pairs of every kind of animal—domestic and wild, large and small—along with birds of every kind.  Two by two they came into the boat, representing every living thing that breathes.  A male and female of each kind entered, just as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord closed the door behind them.

(Genesis 7:13-16, NLT)

I’m glad it says that the Lord closed the door. That would have been a problem for me otherwise. (Just trying to figure out how they did it—not that it would be impossible—more of a timing issue.)

By the time our survivors got over their initial jolt of moving water, alas, everyone else around them (or across the world) was dead. And without one single solitary trace of any existence of anything but what was floating in the water. Maybe a hat or a shirt caught in the limbs of a floating tree, but even that is unlikely, since the falling mass of earth was sucking everything above down with it in its wake.

For forty days the floodwaters grew deeper, covering the ground and lifting the boat high above the earth.  As the waters rose higher and higher above the ground, the boat floated safely on the surface.  Finally, the water covered even the highest mountains on the earth, rising more than twenty-two feet above the highest peaks. 

(Genesis 7:17-20, NLT)

Water has amazing properties, but reproduction is not one of them. Water is a substance of finite presence. There’s only so much water in the world. But then we don’t lose any of it either. So the water level could have only grown deeper because the land had fallen out from under it. I mean, if the water level were already inside the land’s elevation (the bedrock part of the Crust in my model), then that’s what was happening—the land falling into the hot Water Layer. 

“Giant” sinkhole in Mexico. Now imagine ALL of the land falling 2 miles deep into scalding water!

Yep, the land fell; raising the level of the water from being below it to being on top. And if the soil hadn’t gathered into the continents we have now (all raised up due to heat hardening it as it collected) then we would all be under water.  I hope that all readers are getting this; the water came up through the ground. Violently. Suddenly. Irrepressibly. Relentlessly. And it swallowed up all life on the planet—save those lucky few that were saved in the Ark. This is not rainfall reaching up to Mt Everest. It’s Mt. Everest being birthed from a raging water planet in the throws of chaos.

So, the reference to the highest mountains being 22’ below the crest of the floodwater is interesting. For one thing, the mountains were being formed during and after the flood. This means that the highest elevation at the end of the flood’s year could have been higher than during the flood itself (in fact, it had to have been). The elevation kept changing for a few months there. So this reference is just a snapshot moment in time.

However, that doesn’t really matter. Sure, with this model we might be able to figure out how high the waters were during the flood and then see what the terrain might have been doing if we could model such a thing. But that would be very iffy at best. It was all just swirls of mud for a while there.

All the living things on earth died—birds, domestic animals, wild animals, small animals that scurry along the ground, and all the people. Everything that breathed and lived on dry land died.  God wiped out every living thing on the earth—people, livestock, small animals that scurry along the ground, and the birds of the sky. All were destroyed. The only people who survived were Noah and those with him in the boat.  And the floodwaters covered the earth for 150 days.

(Genesis 7:21-24, NLT)

Initially, the water would have boiled or burned the people to death as quickly as they were drowning and being ripped to shreds. The only thing that saved the Ark passengers from the heat would have been the rapid cooling of the waters by the blending with the cooler soil. I can only imagine that as being the thing that saved our grandparents’ (aunts’ and uncles’) lives onboard. If those temps had persisted for long, I think they would have perished just from the heat. But as physics would have it, adding cooler dirt to scalding water would have a cooling effect. Also, the atmospheric obscuration around the whole planet at once had a cooling effect going forward (a really big cooling effect, going forward). Oh, and just the release of it into the atmosphere was huge in cooling it down (especially since that release produced cooling clouds).

So after 40 days of the water sloshing around and escaping from under the Crust Layer, it finally was all out of its deep abode and covering the whole of the Earth. And by then the storm of all storms had ended too. But the flood wasn’t over yet. There was still land building to do, using volcanism and mud gathering/hardening. Wherever the continents are, shows where the volcanism was greatest and where it captured the transient mud of the former soil layer.

At the 150 days mark, the water started to subside from the fresh continents that were beginning to “peak” out from under their bathwater. This happened in-part due to massive, continent-sized sheets of newly hardening mud (into rock) being slammed into each other and getting broken in the process. When these sheets collide, they break and wrinkle up into mountains or valleys or canyons. And the lava that was released in all of this produced many volcanoes, with all of their fun features. The Rockies, Andes, and Himalayas are examples. Because tsunamis were so very extreme, they piled up gigantic masses of hardening mud to form the land continents. When India slammed into China, for example, the Himalayas were formed by the wrinkling of the land. And then the volcanism brings in new minerals for making the land rise too. More lava means more rock, and more heat to grab ahold of and to cook more mud into rock.

In a way, the destruction and salvation of Earth through this flood shows the same kind of fingerprints that can only be produced by the Creator. I mean, just as the creation is irreducibly complex, so too are the conditions required for creating the conditions we now observe on planet Earth. Fossils and fossil fuels in the quantity and variety that we see now could only have happened in this fashion at one time; not over many eons. The same is true with the erosion patterns, tectonic plates, and continental shelves. The Flood of Genesis is the only comprehensive explanation for all geophysical and geological features of This Broken Planet.

The Bible is quite clear about this being a global flood. Did you see the part that says, “The only people who survived were Noah and those with him in the boat”? And when it says that the floodwaters covered even the highest mountains on the earth, that also is quite clearly saying that the entire world was covered by water all at once, killing everything on land that breathed air and was not on the boat. I mean, for a time, all dirt was mixed with the floodwaters (that had to suck for those with gills). Mountains are made of dirt being scooped into ripples. At 22’ it was probably the highest water level and the level of the submerged land/mud at the time. 

But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and livestock with him in the boat. He sent a wind to blow across the earth, and the Floodwaters began to recede. The underground waters stopped flowing, and the torrential rains from the sky were stopped. So the Floodwaters gradually receded from the earth. After 150 days, exactly five months from the time the Flood began, the boat came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. Two and a half months later, as the waters continued to go down, other mountain peaks became visible.

(Genesis 8:1-5, NLT)

I just realized; God’s wrath, when the Lord returns, will last exactly the same timeframe—5 months, or 150 days (see Revelation 9). (Huh.)

The absolute height of the floodwaters was probably there for a very brief time. Almost as soon as it crested it started to recede, as the continents were forming below and growing from lava flows and mud flows coming together and expanding as they hardened and baked.  At 22′, all of the former Water Layer was unleashed and out in the open. But the sludge was in motion and so was the lava from the Mantle below. When and where the two came together, continents arose from the depths of the muddy waters.

Earth’s foundation was definitely still in motion in places, due to the new Tectonic Plates being formed for the first time and finding their relative positions with jostling, slipping, and falling happening, and with the sludge still in motion and forming into mountains, canyons, islands, and valleys. Of course, any motion like that is going to produce tsunamis on the surface. I mean, how could it not, with all of the motion of the waters and that slippery, ruptured surface of the now mutilated Mantle. This had to continue for months after the explosion. And it did. And this is how the continents arose out from the waters. Lava bubbles up and turns to rock, expanding as it cools; while the mud gets hung up on it and bakes itself into rock and also expands as it hardens. This is the process that formed the continents—all of them. The mighty winds helped to blow the water off the highest parts of the continents and get things flowing to the sea. That we have any soil at all, able to support life, is a statement to the providence of God. And this is why vegetarianism gave way to eating whatever can sustain life.

There would have been much breaking and moving of the crust bedrock pieces—the new tectonic plates—grinding them down and pushing them all around the world. The water would have pushed them like jigsaw pieces being mixed up in the mud and water and lava. The flows were incalculable for a time there, with great mud globs stretching across huge swaths of the planet, coming together as they melt into one another and harden with the lava rising up from below. We can see where certain events happened just by reading the signs in the ocean floor and other places. Things like a lot of pressure flowing up through (what we now call) the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, sending huge swaths of mud in opposite directions (forming the South America and Africa rift—same with Europe and North America.)

Water currents were so fierce that the Ark could have been torn to shreds if not for God’s loving care. Winds of immense magnitude would have been raging on for days and weeks at a time. Imagine lying in the tossing Ark, rocking back and forth, to and fro, up and down, listening to the gale force winds howling through the cubit-high window above, that displays only a dark-grey background with rain pouring in as it pitches to receive or deny the drops’ entry. But then, the rain is “falling” in all directions, as the wind takes it along its chaotic rumble in all directions; swirls, really. Lightening only lessens the gloom in its fits and spurts, while thunderclaps are ear-shatteringly near and relentlessly, ceaselessly afar off. You clutch your mate a little more tightly as the darkness rocks you into an uneasy fit of sleep (counting bleats of sheep).

So what was once the highest ground on Earth under the flood’s crest would have been much higher a little later on, when India slammed into China, making the tallest peaks, for example, or Denver’s Rockies coming from where Hawaii is now. 

Water ran off of the still rising mountain ranges and the forming valleys and canyons. I think that the Grand Canyon is just a big crack that appeared in the hardening mud/rock layers as the continent was still in flux. And then a lot of runoff rushed through on its way to the Pacific. (This was a common scenario all over the world.) East of the Continental Divide, it ran into the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico (oh, and the Arctic too).

The final runoff at this time would have been something to behold. Like a tsunami that seems to never stop, or a river more than a thousand miles wide; carrying dead animal parts, all kinds of foliage, and rocks—lots of rocks—out to sea, while the volcanoes spit, flow, and roar with lava and mudflows slashing through everything in their path. Man! Devastating! Catastrophic! Epic! (More words needed.) But if the Mantle had not been changed, the water would’ve just gone back to where it was, I would imagine. Thank God for rising lava and baking mud, working together to build up a continent or few (ok, seven).

In the Flood, entire biomes were carried away in mudflows for hundreds or thousands of miles and deposited in their baking land encasements that become the new continents. Do you get it? Before the flood, let’s say there’s a huge biome (maybe bigger than the Pacific Ocean), rich with plant life and fauna, including herds of dinosaurs and any animals imaginable. Suddenly, either the entire array of life is swallowed up into the ground at once, or they are all covered by a swift moving mud-wave a hundred yards thick and hundreds of miles wide. If they went straight down, then there they are encased. If taken by a moving mudbank, they are still encased, but already in motion. The mud they are in is added-to with more mudflows and more lava flows. Either way they entered the mudflow, they are all in it now: plants with human and animal remains all getting cooked by the heat of the lava that permeates and mixes with the mud.

“Into coal, oil, and gasses they go; fossils, too, don’t cha know?”

Those mud flows are the new continents that rose because baked mud is loftier than unbaked mud; because lava came gushing up from the depths of the earth’s loins and cooled into more mineral stuff, also expanded from its original state.

After another forty days, Noah opened the window he had made in the boat and released a raven. The bird flew back and forth until the Floodwaters on the earth had dried up. He also released a dove to see if the water had receded and it could find dry ground. But the dove could find no place to land because the water still covered the ground. So it returned to the boat, and Noah held out his hand and drew the dove back inside. After waiting another seven days, Noah released the dove again. This time the dove returned to him in the evening with a fresh olive leaf in its beak. Then Noah knew that the Floodwaters were almost gone. He waited another seven days and then released the dove again. This time it did not come back. 

Noah was now 601 years old. On the first day of the new year, ten and a half months after the Flood began, the Floodwaters had almost dried up from the earth. Noah lifted back the covering of the boat and saw that the surface of the ground was drying. Two more months went by, and at last the earth was dry!

(Genesis 8:6-14, NLT)

This might have been the most difficult time for them, as far as work goes. By now (I’m sure), the animals are all awake and getting a bit stir-crazy, wanting to get out and run and eat and be free. Before coming to rest on the mountain range, they were probably just hanging on for dear life in the bobbing and pitching and rolling of the ship. Now it’s a totally different vibe onboard; the boat isn’t moving like crazy but the animals are. 

Outside, the Earth is still reeling and drifting and being reshaped forever. The Grand Canyon is forming from land being jostled that has just formed and is still fragile—not fully baked and hardened yet. Huge sheets of earth are jostling each other still across the globe, and will for a time to come; whether under the sea or rising up above it. Earthquakes are nearly constant for the Ark Crew and guests. Mountains rise and canyons fall. We’re just waiting for the world to quit reverberating from the explosion that dislodged and ruined it. Earthquakes and storms are constant reminders of the Earth’s throws of agony that linger, as she is being reshaped into God’s new will for her. These tremors will never leave her, for as long as she remains. She is dying now; her end has begun. Her days are numbered. Tectonic Plates are just broken pieces of the rock ball that was our original Crust Layer Bedrock. They are lying upon a ruptured and slippery Mantle that also is in motion now that it is nearly inside out.

Then God said to Noah, “Leave the boat, all of you—you and your wife, and your sons and their wives. Release all the animals—the birds, the livestock, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—so they can be fruitful and multiply throughout the earth.” 

(Genesis 8:15-17, NLT)

Grasslands

This isn’t part of the model, and I don’t know that it’s revelation, either. I haven’t read this in the Bible, and I don’t think I’ve seen it in textbooks, personally, but it just seems to me that the world immediately following the flood would have been quickly covered in grasslands. 

Grasslands…everywhere

When I look at Google Earth and imagine the people’s migrations from Babel to the farthest reaches of the planet, it just seems like grass would have been where deserts or barren places are now. They would have had domestic animals migrating with them. And those animals would have eaten grass. When they settled in Babel, it was called a plain. That implies lots of grass to me. They made bricks, which would require grass. Grass tends to pop up more quickly than other plants, except maybe for weeds. 

I don’t know, it’s just a thing in my head. I see people migrating over huge grasslands on their way to their new homes. And why people settled in the brown areas they are in now only makes sense if there were green grass there when they settled. Places like Babel, which now is a wasteland. That was their choice? (Really?) It had to be better back then compared to now. There was probably more water for crops, too. It may have been on a bay at first, as well.

My guess is that the water table has gone down over the millennia and centuries. It’s been draining into the oceans, but at what rate? Did the rate slow way down at the end there and just go down so slowly that it wasn’t noticed to be still receding? I don’t know.

Post-Flood Weather

Okay, a quick weather review: 

• Pre-Flood weather| perfect all the time
• Mid-Flood weather| more extreme than anyone but Noah and his family has ever lived through. Probably not survivable all on its own (without shelter).

As bad as Mid-Flood weather was, the Post-Flood weather was probably no picnic either, especially from our intrepid survivors’ point of view (having experienced nothing but perfect weather for hundreds of years—personally, in Noah’s case. Shem was 98 after the flood, and Japheth was 101).

But they stepped out onto another planet completely, weather wise. I doubt if they had any idea what they were in for, and soon. A whole new world of temperatures was upon them, forever. 

Ice Age?

Really, there isn’t a whole lot in the Bible about what happened right away, weather-wise. So far, we just have the mighty wind that helped with the massive runoff worldwide.

(The runoff that continues to this day, in my opinion. Since my earliest memories, I’ve seen the water table dwindle across my part of the planet. We are slowly losing our good, potable water. Minerals and other water-soluble elements are leaching into the water below ground, making it largely undrinkable.) 

Weather-wise, I think that’s about it from the Bible in early Earth history. But we know from history and the geological evidence that there was a period of heavy, heavy snowfall not long after the Flood was over (maybe immediately). 

I’m not a meteorologist but I was trained a little in weather. What I think happened was the cold trend continued to the point that snow and hail and ice began to fall so heavily, throughout so much of the world, that it froze much of the planet for at least a few years if not decades, as the seas cooled and weather patterns were established and stabilized.

Fortunately, our intrepid survivors landed in an area where the snow and temperatures weren’t that bad; they didn’t land on the mountains of Antarctica, for example. And they didn’t land someplace impossible to navigate from; like the middle of the Himalayas, or the Congo jungle. From the mountains of Ararat, they could have easily gotten to decent latitudes where the temps were livable. (Saying they were on the mountains doesn’t mean the highest point.)

That’s when the polar regions, North and South, froze over. It’s no secret that there were many years of what we call an “Ice Age”. What we can’t seem to agree on is how many ice ages we’ve had and how long they’ve lasted in all. Personally, I don’t think that there has been any more than one “ice age”, but that it has just lasted for a while in the northernmost or southernmost reaches of the planet (I guess it’s still going on at the poles, isn’t it?). Did the glaciers oscillate north and south a bit as they retreated? Maybe. But they retreated steadily after they were first formed, not long after the Flood, and still going. Oh, and don’t confuse glacial scars with flood scars. Rocks show signs of rocks being dragged across them, leaving huge scars. Some scarring could occur from ice moving as well, I guess, but the flood did much more damage to the surface than the retreating, melting ice sheets.

I want to add, really quickly, that the Lord will probably be back before Greenland is green. Just keepin’ it real. 

Tower of Babel

We will look at their migrations in another chapter, but from here Noah’s family moved South (to escape the cold?) and a bit East and eventually began to build up a city in modern day Iraq, when God reminded them that they weren’t doing what He told them to do—namely, spreading out! 

That was the Tower of Babel Incident that happened to Noah and his family, all the way down to great, great, great grandson, Peleg, who was born in 1,758, AM (anno mundi, year of Earth). His name means “division” because he was born during the great division of people and language. (See Genesis 10:25.)

If 1,758 is when the division happened, then that was a mere 101 years after the flood was over in 1,657. So, 100 years after the flood, everyone had their lives turned upside down all over again. Was God being unfair or mean? I don’t think so. If He hadn’t broken everyone up, we would’ve turned society into one big city that would’ve just kept growing and growing. I don’t see that as being the best way to grow the population (in a crowded urban environment). Plus, it’s cool how all civilizations have something unique about them. And I like the variety of languages and ethnicities.

By the way, Noah outlived Peleg by about 9 years. Peleg died in 1,997 and Noah died in 2,006 (3 years before Abraham was born in 2,009 and 352 years after the flood). Peleg was 239 years old; Noah was 950. “Radiation, radiation, radiation.” 

Yes, Noah and his sons were presumably all there in Babel during the great breakup of their family into clans and societies. They probably lit a fire under everyone to go as far and as fast as possible when the languages hit. And they did—probably ill-prepared and ill-equipped. You can imagine why Noah didn’t want to test God’s patience another second. He had already seen what happens when people ignore Him. You don’t need language to communicate to your family, “Go”! “Go far”! Noah was 702 and probably not going anywhere, now that radiation was zapping his energy. And if a Nimrod-type brute were pushing people out, eesh! It could’ve been brutal. But who knows? It could have been a very sweet, tearful, and loving goodbye.

This is when various religions began to pop up all around the world (because people don’t seem to like repeating sad stories—like a good God wiping out almost all of humanity in a flood because of their evil ways, I guess). God’s methods are so very clever and effective, aren’t they? I can see it now: God ~ “These guys aren’t breaking up like I said. I know, I’ll make it so they can’t talk to each other, that’ll split them up.” Brilliant! It worked perfectly. They all split up right away and some of them went many thousands of miles before putting down roots that would establish cradles of humanity around the globe. They probably all went away angry (at God) or scared about what might happen next.

This is the beginning of ethnicities; differences in human appearance based on genetic lines of separation. Because this caused a shallower gene pool for the various family lines, “ethnic traits” began to appear in us everywhere. The ones who went to Africa, for example, never again saw their family who went to the Americas in the east (because they went eastward to get there). When they spread out, they really spread out.

Some of them went straight to what is now Central America, across arctic ice, to become the Olmec, Aztec, and Mayan peoples. Some of them stayed close and populated Mesopotamia or went West and became Egyptians or to the North to become the Minoans; some formed cradles of civilization in what is now China or India. On and on it went, all over the globe, farther and farther they spread out. I think that the Mayan culture was being constructed while Noah still lived in Babel. It could have been that quick.

At the birth of every language (at Babel), all people were of one cloth. They were one big family under Noah, the righteous patriarch. Imagine Asian language speakers looking exactly like Germanic language speakers, or African or any other. One family with much capacity for genetic variety in appearance and other qualities.

I think that the real “human race” was a footrace to see who could build the tallest ziggurat type building in the world as quickly and as far away from home as possible. After they had all agreed to build a really monumental structure back home to make them famous (at Babel), they probably kept that spirit with them as they all parted ways. The Bible says nothing of it going away from the people. Most early cradles of society have some kind of ziggurat or pyramid in their architecture, made of bricks. It was “in” when they moved out. I guess you can take the boy out of the ziggurat; but you can’t take the ziggurat out of the boy.

I don’t believe in racism because I don’t believe in races. There is one race—human. All of the differences in our appearance are due to being split up a long time ago. Racism is just ignorant hatred directed at people who look, act, smell, talk, dress, or anything else, different(ly). Acting like that toward our fellow brethren is offensive. Don’t do it. It shows your lack of godliness. 

Godliness, incase you’re not sure, is being good. It’s also called being “righteous”. We are godly when we act like God would act. God is good.

Here is a quick teaching from Paul on this:

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.  For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 

 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.  For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.  But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

(Galatians 5:13-18)

May I just stop right there? You are not allowed to do just whatever you want. Don’t act out on that negative thought or fantasy. Don’t say those hurtful words. If you can’t contain or control yourself, move to another location until you can. In another letter, Paul called this “fighting the good fight”. It means contending with the desires of the flesh. Fighting our own depraved nature. Maybe if they had this teaching in Noah’s day things would be different. (“Nah, We’ve got it now and just look at us.”)

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

(Galatians 5:19-21, NLT)

Obviously, that paragraph could be turned into another book series. And I don’t want to harp on various sins common to man. I don’t think that Paul meant you had to do all of them to be guilty; I think he meant any one of them, as a character trait or habit or lifestyle or the like, is enough to make us guilty (and these are just examples, not a comprehensive list). When we act like this we need to stop and fight the urge or desire to ever do it again. All people sin. But not all people repent (feel sorry about it and turn from it back to God). God tells sinners to repent. When we do, He forgives; when we don’t, He doesn’t forgive. And He judges us for not forgiving each other too—quite heavily.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.  Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.  Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.  Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. 

(Galatians 5:22-26, NLT)

Sadly, some of the groups may have abandoned God right away. Maybe they were disenchanted from losing so many of their family and friends and way of life, idk. All they knew was Noah and his family. And then he sent them away, probably in haste; great haste—too hastily to get ready for the trip. You know, taking instructions from the others who know stuff they don’t. Getting all the stuff they’ll need for the journey…nope, just “GO! QUICKLY! BEFORE GOD KILLS US ALL FOR DISOBEYING HIM AGAIN!—GO!!” (Seven-hundred-year-old Noah, shuffle-running through the city; both hands waving over his head; screaming to his progeny as he goes… Just guessing.) They didn’t even know how small the new world was at the time compared to before the flood. Many of us today don’t know.

Cavemen

 So far, we’ve seen that a family of eight survived the worst catastrophe to ever hit the world. In fact, they were the first humans to travel in a ship from one world to another. 

This new world they landed in was a lot more hostile, geologically and meteorologically, than their previous world that was now gone forever. Ruined. Destroyed. Lost.

All the technology, knowledge, and skill of humanity was in their 16 hands—they brought it with them; in their heads and hands (and writings?). The rest was lost. I’m sure that they took a hit in their technological progress from all of this. But then they started to rebuild their society. And just when they were getting more advanced in what they knew how to do, while building the tower of Babel, BAM!—it all has to go away—again. They all had to go back two spaces on God’s game-board of life.

This sent them in all directions with little more than the clothes on their backs and what they could carry, cart, drag, or load onto animals. No doubt, some of them knew more about life than others did. Some of them could do things that others could not—like metallurgy, or textiles, or pottery, building carts, etc.

Is it any wonder then that we find evidence of migrant people living in caves or other natural shelters in a very simple lifestyle without a lot of technology? Is it any wonder that all early societies had rituals for burial or marriage or birth?

It’s no secret that those who found themselves in the Neander Valley (“Neandertal” in German), for example, had a different appearance than most other people. They used rocks as tools because they didn’t know what others knew about metals. Eventually, their offspring will figure it out or learn from others they meet. (And their automobiles will be very popular.)

Now, isn’t this story very different from what you heard in school about this one branch of our family tree? We were told that the Neanderthals were primitive cavemen; a link between humans and apes; barely able to speak, if at all. They just grunted and motioned with each other to communicate; not really able to form sentences. 

Well, that was a lie. The Neanderthals were a branch of the family tree who were just like the rest of us, only with more prominent eyebrows than the others, perhaps. Go back to the Apes Following Men cartoon, Frame 1, and look at the guy who’s speaking the dialogue. He’s a Neanderthal, I think. Whatever he’s supposed to be, he looks just like the other two—manly. And he made huts to live in with his family. And he traded with his larger family—the rest of humanity (nearby). I mean, the ones who knew metallurgy went one way and the ones who didn’t went another (probably wishing that they had a blacksmith in the family). The same is true for the other skills: carpentry; pottery; weaving; so on and so forth. We don’t see these skills popping up in various places; we see these skills being taken to various places from Babel or developing further afterward.

We know they had religion and art and higher ways than animals, which all people exhibit. They weren’t primitive biologically; they just lacked some of the technology that they once used to enjoy before the division. They were of the same character as us.

I guarantee, if you had to survive today being taken from your society while traveling all over This Broken Planet, you would be lacking a few of the more stable conveniences of life. You’d live a “primitive” lifestyle for a time. Your situation might even be called “apocalyptic”.  

As a person of Germanic descent and prominent eyebrows, I am likely a member of the Neanderthal family tree. Maybe that explains a lot about me, I don’t know. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Great Flood Synopsis

1. Earth’s Mantle breaks somehow causing lava to come out, thereby exposing everything above to:
   1. Extreme heat
   2. Radiation
   3. Spreading of hot, radioactive lava worldwide under, in, and on the Crust Layer
2. The Mantle’s breaking releases lava that contacts the water and causes the Crust to break due to an explosion of water vapor.
3. The Crust’s breaking allows the Water Layer to be displaced, sending the Crust’s bedrock to the Mantle in a crumbled mess. Pieces can be gigantic or small, stacked or layered, or overlapped; upside down or right-side up, lying on the Mantle or falling into it, riding on magma and melting into it. Subduction is introduced. Tectonic plates are created. The Asthenosphere is created and starts to grow. That’s the molten, squishy, liquid layer of really hot stuff just under the tectonic plates.  The more we get exposed to that, the hotter it will get, I’d think. (Global melting?)
4. At the same time, over the course of about 5 months, the soft soil is redistributed into the continents of today by water dissolving and liquefying it, and the heat (from the magma and lava) cooking it into rock. This means that the land fell out from under everything and was replaced with scalding water/mud that seemingly came from nowhere. It was a quick death globally (except for a few strong fliers that died a short bit later). This is not the rainstorm that people have been saying it was. It was two parts of the Crust doing two different things: 1. Rock Falling; and 2. Soil Swirling. After that came the rain.
5. Everything that we can observe in the world geologically testifies to this story being true as just told. Mostly, EROSION just screams of the flood. You know, “Flood, Flood, Flood!” like on and on and on…it just won’t shut up about it. But deep time isn’t anywhere on Earth to be found…just crickets| created critters creeping in crags, chirping cheerful chimes.
6. After the Flood, Noah and the boys and women, went down south and east to a place in modern Iraq (probably to escape the Ice Age). This became Babel. (Babel is where Noah saw what God had done with the languages and probably made everyone get out too quickly to prepare—that’s conjecture on my part). But they did spread out from Babel rather quickly and globally. He must have given them instructions to go as far as possible from him. “Go, until you can go no more!”…“Don’t stop for twelve moons!” or whatever. I mean, being family they still had ways to communicate certain simple things.

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Contents
Preamble
Ch 1: Competing Worldviews
Ch 2: The Broken Planet Model
Ch 3: The Flood
Ch 4: “Earth Looks Old”
Ch 5: Radiometric Dating
Ch 6: Some Scientific Dating Methods
Ch 7: Biology
Ch 8: The Promise
Questions & Answers