CREATIONISM VS EVOLUTION, (CONT.)

II) SCRIPTURAL TESTIMONY & PHYSICAL EVIDENCE OF A RECENT CREATION, (cont.)

B) SCRIPTURAL TESTIMONY & PHYSICAL EVIDENCE FROM EARTH WHICH TESTIFY TO A RECENT CREATION, (cont.)

5) PERIOD OF A WORLDWIDE FLOOD, (cont.)

b) SCRIPTURAL TESTIMONY OF A WORLDWIDE FLOOD, (cont.)

7) THE NEED FOR AN ARK POINTS TO A UNIVERSAL DELUGE NOT A LOCAL ONE, (cont.)

g) THE ARK WAS NOT DESTROYED BY VIOLENT SEAS AS CRITICS MAINTAIN WOULD HAVE HAPPENED

[pp. 102-104]

"[Critics maintain] that the Ark would have been in danger of capsizing and its occupants would not have been able to survive under such conditions for a year... [But] In the first place, the Ark was not a ship, but a barge. The Biblical evidence indicates that the Ark was built specifically for the purpose of withstanding the terrific impact of the waves that would dash against it...

The ark had a door and three stories.The stories functioned the same as the staterooms in providing a division of animals and a bracing of the structure. The shape of the ark was boxy or angular, and not streamlined nor curved. With this shape it increased its carrying capacity by one third. It was a vessel designed for floating, not for sailing... [It was] very seaworthy and almost impossible to capsize... The stability of such a barge is great and it increases as it sinks deeper into the water. The lower the center of gravity the more difficult it is to capsize...

In the second place, we must not make the mistake of underestimating the implications of Genesis 8:1, 'God remembered Noah, and all the beasts, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark.' This statement refers to a time when the waters were still at their height and the fountains of the great deep had not yet been stopped (Gen. 8:2)...

...The word 'remembered' ('z akar') in this context does not imply that God had forgotten the Ark and its occupants for a time! According to Hebrew usage, the meaning of 'z akar' is 'granting requests, protecting, delivering.' when God is the subject and persons are the object. ['Brown, Driver, and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament', p. 270]...

Thus, when we take into account the divinely-planned structure of the Ark and the ever-watchful care of God for His creatures in that Ark, it is entirely gratuitous to insist that the Flood must have been a tranquil affair for Noah's family and the animals to have survived that year-long ordeal unscathed.."

8) TESTIMONY OF PETER: WHOLE WORLD DESTROYED

[pp. 14-16, 33]:

[2 Peter 3:3-7]:

(v. 3) "Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts,

(v. 4) and saying, 'Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.'

(v. 5) For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago [lit. "from of old"] and the earth was formed out of water and by water,

(v. 6) through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water.

(v. 7) But the present heavens [lit. 'that now are'] and earth by His word are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men."]

"Peter uses the terms 'heavens from of old, and an earth ' [verse 5] in a sense that is obviously universal. By the same token, no one can deny that Peter also uses the terms 'heavens that now are and the earth' in the strictly universal sense...

...It was the Flood to which Peter appealed as his final and incontrovertible answer to those who chose to remain in willful ignorance of the fact that God had at one time in the past demonstrated His holy wrath and omnipotence by subjecting 'all things' to an overwhelming, cosmic catastrophe that was on an absolute par with the final day of judgment, in which God will yet consume the earth with fire and will cause the very elements to dissolve with fervent heat (II Peter 3:10)."

9) DEPTH OF THE FLOOD = THE WHOLE EARTH COVERED

[pp. 1-3, 33]:

"The Bible says that the waters of the Flood covered the highest mountains to a depth sufficient for the Ark to float over them...

...One of the most important Biblical arguments for a universal Flood is Genesis 7:19-20....

[Gen 7:19-20 NAS]:

(v. 19) "And the water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains which were under all the heavens were covered.

(v. 20) The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher [cubit ? approx. 18"] the mountains were covered."

"under the heavens" = emphasizes that all of the mountains under the heavens, i.e., encompassing the entire earth were covered with water - and not just all of the mountains of a limited area

"prevailed fifteen cubits higher" = Critics maintain that the Flood waters were only 22 feet deep overall and were merely localized and not 22 feet over the mountaintops; but the wording of verse 7 does not support this interpretation. The verse literally states that the level of the Flood water prevailed 15 cubits x 18" = 22 feet higher than all of the mountains under all of the heavens, i.e. over the highest mountains of the whole earth. ]

..If only one (to say nothing of all) of the high mountains had been covered with water, the Flood would have been absolutely universal; for water must seek its own level - and must do so quickly!....

..since 'all' is known to be used [elsewhere] in a relative sense, the writer [of Genesis] removes all possible ambiguity by adding the phrase 'under the heavens.' A double "all" ("kol") ["all the mountains" & "all the heavens"] cannot allow for so relative a sense....

The phrase "fifteen cubits upward did the water prevail" does not mean that the Flood was only fifteen cubits (22 feet) deep, for the phrase is qualified by the one which immediately follows: "and the mountains were covered." Nor does it necessarily mean that the mountains were covered to a depth of only fifteen cubits, for this would require that all antediluvian mountains be exactly the same altitude.

The true meaning of the phrase is to be found in comparing it with Genesis 6:15, where we are told that the height of the Ark was thirty cubits...

[Gen 6:15]:

"And this is how you shall make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits."]

...If the Flood had not covered the mountains by at least such a depth [of 22? feet] the [fully laden] Ark could not have floated over them during the five months in which the water "prevailed" upon the earth."

10) DURATION OF FLOOD INDICATES A WORLDWIDE FLOOD

a) INTRODUCTION

[pp. 3-7, 33]:

"The Bible also informs us that this situation [of a worldwide flood] prevailed for a period of five months and that an additional seven months were required for the waters to subside sufficiently for Noah to disembark in the mountains of Ararat... ...That the Flood continued for more than a year is entirely in keeping with the doctrine of its universality but cannot properly be reconciled with the local-Flood theory...

A careful study of the Biblical data reveals the fact that the Flood lasted for 371 days..."

b) 150 DAYS OF PREVAILING FLOODS

"...In [Gen] 7:4 and 7:12... ...we read that the rains came "upon the earth forty days and forty nights." and 7:17...

[Gen 7:17]:

"Then the flood was upon the earth for forty days; and the water increased and lifted up the ark, so that it rose above the earth."]

...The Flood attained its maximum depth after the first forty days and continued to maintain this level for an additional 110 days before beginning to assuage...

[Gen 7:24]:

"And the water prevailed upon the earth one hundred and fifty days."

[Gen 8:3]:

"and the water receded steadily from the earth, and at the end of one hundred and fifty days the water decreased."]

...Most of 'the waters which were above the firmament' (Gen 1:7) must have fallen through 'the windows of heaven' [Gen 8:2] during the first period of forty days; and although [the flow from] 'the windows of heaven' [and from the] 'fountains of the deep' were not stopped for another 110 days [Gen 8:2-3], the rainfall during this second period [of 110 additional days] may have contributed only to the maintaining of the Flood at its maximum height..."

c) 221 DAYS OF ASSUAGING WATERS

"...If the Biblical concept of a deluge covering the tops of mountains for.. [110 days] ...is hard to reconcile with the local-Flood theory, what are we to say of the fact that an an additional thirty-one weeks were required for the waters to subside sufficiently for Noah to disembark safely in the mountains of Ararat?...

[Critics falsely maintain that] ...if land could be seen, the raven would have found a place to alight instead of wandering to and fro as depicted in Gen. 8:7...

[Gen 8:5-7]:

(v. 5) "And the water decreased steadily until the tenth month, in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tips of the mountains became visible.

(v. 6) Then it came about at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made;

(v. 7) and he sent out a raven, and it flew here and there until the water was dried up from the earth."]

...In this interval.. [of time it is falsely reasoned by the critics that] ...as soon as the level [of the water] had fallen by the amount equal to the draught of the vessel dry land would appear... [Thus the critics falsely reason that since] ...25 feet in 74 days is the equivalent of a drop in level of about 4 inches per day... [Then the critics jump to the false conclusion] ...that a drop in water level of only a few inches a day would be more appropriate for a limited flood than a universal one.

[But] When we turn to the text of Genesis, however, we discover that this could not have been the case. For 8:4-7 indicates that [the Ark rested upon one of the mountains - a high one and then 14 days later] 'the tops of the [lower] mountains' [Gen 8:5] were seen as much as forty days before the raven was sent forth..."

[Gen 8:4-7]:

(v. 4) "And in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat.

(v. 5) And the water decreased steadily until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains became visible.

["the tops of the mountains became visible." = i.e., from the vantage point of the Ark which now rested upon the upper ground of one of the highest mountains of Ararat, (since no mountaintops were visible at this time, the mountain must have been the highest within visibility in that mountain range) - the tops of other mountains in that range would later become visible in 14 more days, the mountains not being all the same height]

(v. 6) Then it came about at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made;

(v. 7) and he sent out a raven, and it flew here and there until the water was dried up from the earth."]

[So] ...Noah did not send forth the raven to determine whether any mountain peaks had emerged as yet... [as critics falsely maintain] ...but to gain information about the nature of these [already] exposed [mountaintop] areas...

[The mountaintops would have already begun to emerge because the Ark was already grounded]

..The wild, omnivorous bird [the raven] went flying back and forth... He presumably found some carrion meat floating in the water or deposited in the mountaintops...

..The raven's failure to return into the Ark... ...was a good sign; for it proved that the waters had declined considerably and that even though the outside world was still very unfriendly or inhospitable, it was no longer too inhospitable for so sturdy and unfastidious a bird as the raven...

Furthermore... ...it was not merely the top of the high mountain on which the Ark rested that was seen on the first day of the tenth month. The Scriptures inform us that on that day 'were the tops of the mountains seen.' [v. 5]. In other words., the Flood waters must have subsided hundreds of feet in order for various mountain peaks of different altitudes to be seen by then...

[Scripture makes it clear] the ground was still soaked on the twenty-sixth day of the second month because we are told the ground was dry on the twenty-seventh day of the second month...

[Gen 8:14]:

"And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry."

Let's review this passage in Scripture to which Dr. Morris is referring:

[Gen 8:7-14]:

(v. 7) "and he sent out a raven, and it flew here and there until the water was dried up from the earth.

(v. 8) Then he sent out a dove from him, to see if the water was abated from the face of the land;

(v. 9) but the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, so she returned to him into the ark; for the water was on the surface of all the earth. Then he put out his hand and took her, and brought here into the ark to himself.

(v. 10) So he waited yet another seven days; and again he sent out the dove from the ark.

(v. 11) And the dove came to him toward evening; and behold, in her beak was a freshly picked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the water was abated from the earth.

(v. 12) Then he waited yet another seven days, and sent out the dove; but she did not return to him again.

(v. 13) Now it came about in the six hundred and first year [of Noah's life], in the first month, on the first of the month, the water was dried up from the earth. [underlining mine] Then Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the surface of the ground was dried up.

(v. 14) And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of themonth, the earth was dry."]

...It is obvious that the Scriptures speak of definite stages of drying in verses 11, 13, and 14, with the implication of a uniform process between the stages.. ...from the day that the Ark grounded... ...more and more of the lower peaks emerged from the waters as they gradually subsided... ...during much of the ninth month the tops of various mountains were seen... ...It is also true that on the first day of the tenth month [Gen 8:5] 'were the tops of the mountains seen.' It just so happens that God chose this date, rather than a slightly earlier one, to mark a stage in the abating of the waters...

The order of events as set forth in the first part of the eighth chapter of Genesis would seem, then, to be as follows:

(1) After the waters had 'prevailed upon the earth' 150 days, the waters began to assuage.

(2) The Ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat the same day that the waters began to assuage, for the 17th day of the 7th month was exactly 150 days after the Flood began.

(3) The waters continued to subside, so that by the 1st day of the 10th month (74 days later), the tops of various lower mountains could be seen. This would suggest a drop of perhaps fifteen or twenty feet a day, at least during the initial phase of this assuaging period.

(4) The Flood level continued to fall for forty more days, so that Noah, no longer fearing that the Flood would return, sent forth a raven to investigate the conditions outside the Ark."

11) EMERGENCE OF TODAY'S TOPOGRAPHY AS THE FLOOD WATERS SUBSIDE

a) SUPERNATURAL WINDS

[p. 266-267]

"And now the Bible account speaks of a tremendous wind...

[Gen 8:1]:

"But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided."]

..This was evidently no ordinary wind, as its purpose and result are said to have been to cause the waters to 'return from off the earth.' [Gen 8:7]...

..Although it would certainly very materially have accelerated the evaporation process, it is quite evident that evaporation alone could never return all the water that had fallen during the forty days back to the skies, not to mention the juvenile waters that had poured forth through the fountains of the great deep. The only way in which land could now appear again would be for a tremendous orogeny [series of mountain range formations] to take place. Mountains must rise and new basins must form to receive the great overburden of water imposed upon the earth. This process is described in Psalm 104:5-9...

[Ps 104:5-9]:

(v. 5) "He established the earth upon its foundations,

so that it will not totter forever and ever.

(v. 6) Thou didst cover it with the deep as with a garment;

The waters were standing above the mountains.

(v. 7) At Thy rebuke they fled;

At the sound of Thy thunder they hurried away.

(v. 8) The mountains rose; the valleys sank down

To the place which Thou didst establish for them.

(v. 9) Thou didst set a bloundary that they may not pass over;

That they may not return to cover the earth."]

Prior to the Flood, the earth's protective canopy of water vapor had maintained a global climate of essentially uniform temperature. Since temperature differentials are the chief cause of wind movements and storms, we may infer that storms and strong winds, as well as strong rains, were unknown before the Flood. But with the condensation and precipitation of the canopy, the protection was removed. Air masses near the poles began to cool and those near the equator to heat more intensively, and soon a great complex of atmospheric motions began.

Even today, meteorologists are uncertain about the nature of the atmospheric circulation and its components, so that it would only be speculation to attempt to describe the winds, as they developed for the first time on the water-shrouded globe. This, as well as the fundamental importance of the temperature differentials is indicated by Starr:

'But control of the weather and climate now looks even more difficult than had been thought. A complex of random, unmanageable processes seems to govern our weather patterns. To effect any general change would require nothing less than altering the Equator-Pole heat differential or the rate of the earth's rotation.'...

[Victor P. Starr: 'The General Circulation of the Atmosphere,' Scientific American, Vol. 195, December 1956, p. 45]

..But it does appear reasonable to conclude that the new temperature differentials then being established would result in terrific wines all over the globe, with the major component being from the poles toward the equator with much evaporation and subsequent reprecipitation. And such winds would again initiate violent waves on the universal ocean with renewed sedimentary action in many places...

..The height and spacing of wind-generated waves increase with the wind speed and the 'fetch length;' that is, the open, unrestricted nautical distance along which the wind can blow across the water surface. (See C. L. Bretschneider: 'Hurricane Design Wave Practices,' Journal of the Waterways and Harbors Division of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. 83, Paper 1238, May 1957, p. 3). With a boundless ocean and a sudden great air movement from the poles to the equator, unimpeded by frictional resistance afforded by land surfaces, the potential wave size during this period would seem to be enormous..."

b) ISOSTATIC READJUSTMENTS IN THE EARTH

Isostatic readjustments = the readjustments as a result of the catastrophic events during the Deluge period of materials below the surface in the earth's crust in order to re-establish equilibrium and thereby attain relative geological stability again.

[pp.. 268-270]

"Presumably before the Flood, the earth's crust was in a state of general equilibrium, although the great pressures of the fluids locked within the "great deep" made it a precarious state of equilibrium. The principle of isotasy ('equal weights') requires that, at some datum level deep in the crust, pressures due to superincumbent materials be everywhere constant in order for crustal equilibrium to be maintained. Thus, regions of high topography must be regions of low density and vice versa. Probably there were no very substantial regional defferences in land densities before the Flood, and correspondingly no very large regional differences in elevation. Mountains were relatively low and ocean beds relatively shallow as compared with present conditions.

But with the Deluge, several factors combined to destroy the antediluvian geophysical equilibrium. Great masses of water and other materials were ejected from below the surface. On the other hand, equally or more voluminous masses of sediments were formed and deposited in great beds, possibly often corresponding to what are now called geosynclines... [? great downward flexures in the earth's crust]

A general redisposition of the prediluvian topography took place, placing the crust for a time in a state of isostatic instability...

...Intense compressive stresses must have been generated in the crust, as previous surface materials began to settle into the voids left by the escaping magmas [bodies of molten volcanic rock] and water. The less competent and less dense, newly-deposited sediments would have been easily deformed and uplifted under the action of such forces. The heavier simatic materials would tend to sink, forming deep basins, the lighter materials therefore rising and forming the continents.

The trigger mechanism that set in motion the forces of isostatic readjustment may well have been the great wind, with the gigantic waves and strong currents certainly generated thereby, as the Biblical accounts... ...seem to imply...

[Gen 8:1-5]:

(v. 1) "But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided.

(v. 2) Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained;

(v. 3) and the water receded steadily from the earth, and at the end of one hundred and fifty days the water decreased.

(v. 4) And in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat.

(v. 5) And the water decreased steadily until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains became visible."

[Ps 104:5-9]:

(v. 5) "He [God, v.1 ] established the earth upon its foundations,

So that it will not totter forever and ever.

(v. 6) Thou didst cover it with the deep as with a garment;

The waters were standing above the mountains

(v. 7) At Thy rebuke they fled;

At the sound of Thy thunder they hurried away.

(v. 8) The mountains rose; the valleys sank down

To the place which Thou didst establish for them.

(v. 9) Thou didst set a boundary that they may not pass over;

That they may not return to cover the earth."]

..In any event, whatever the precise nature of the cause or causes, the process by which the lands were uncovered, the mountains rising and the basins sinking, is said to have begun on the seventeenth day of the seventh month... ...By the first day of the tenth month 'were the tops of the mountains seen' (Genesis 8:5).

..during this period of orogeny, once again great quantities of erosion and deposition of sediments took place especially predominant would have been the phenomenon of turbidity flows... [= sediment filled flowing water]

..The newly-deposited sediments were still relatively soft and unconsolidated, and the imposition of new gradients and currents over them when the lands began to rise would have immediately induced scouring action on a large scale. The mixture of water and mud thus formed would, in flowing down slope, itself cause tremendous submarine erosion and ultimate redeposition. The great sedimentary competency of these turbidity currents, or density currents as they are also called, has only been appreciated in recent years but has been adequately demonstrated both by field data and laboratory studies.

...With the appearance of the lands and the goint-forth of Noah and the other inhabitants of the Ark, the Flood period proper may be said to have ended. But it must not be thought that the present balance between the earth's various hydrological and physiographic factors was attained immediately. Undoubtedly effects of these profound changes in the earth's surface and atmosphere were felt for centuries and perhaps are still being felt in some degree."

c) RISE OF THE CONTINENTS

[p. 271]

"Another Biblical inference is that the continental blocks rose rapidly, geologically speaking, relative to the ocean basins. That is, the continental shelves, which mark the boundaries between the continental and oceanic blocks, must have been formed tectonically rather than through sedimentary action of some sort. This also seems confirmed by the physical evidence.

'The theory that the continental slopes have achieved their present form as a result of fault slippage at the contact of the continental blocks with the oceanic blocks of the earth's crust seems to accord with more observed facts than do other theories.'

[J. V. Trumbull, John Lyman, J. F. Pepper, and E. M. Thompson: "An Introduction to the Geology and Mineral Resources of the Continental Shelves of the Americas, U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1067, 1958, p. 25]

[pp. 286-287]:

"It is probable that many of the later Tertiary beds, those attributed to the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, represent the deposits made during the time when the 'mountains were rising, and the valleys sinking,' in the final weeks of the Deluge activities.

This may also be true of some of the supposed Pleistocene deposits.

The uplifts of the Pliocene are especially noteworthy and are indicated both by present beds of pre-Pliocene strata now found at high elevations and by pliocene inter-montane deposits of such character as to demonstrate deposition by swollen streams rushing from newly-uplifted mountains.

'The North American uplift is referred to as the Cascadian revolution. However, it affected not only the Cascade Mountains after which it is named but the whole of the mountain country from the Rocky Mountains westward. The diastrophism was largely epeirogenic rather than orogenic. Mountains were raised 5,000 to 10,000 feet vertically by faulting (Sierra Nevada) and upwarping (Rockies), not by folding. The Andes of South America were similarly affected, likewise the Appalachian region. Great volcanic activity was an accompaniment of this upheaving in many localities...

The Pliocene upheavals of other parts of the world are referred to as developments of the Alpine revolution because they got conspicuous expression in the Alps... The Himalayas acquired much of their height in the Pliocene. Pliocene and Pleistocene diastrophism is perhaps the greatest and most widespread that the earth has known since Pre-Cambrian times.'

[von Engeln and Caster, op. cit., p. 439]

Thus, these uplifts constituted truly a worldwide phenomenon, for which, as we have already pointed out, geologists have no satisfactory explanation on uniformitarian principles. But this is just what the account of the Biblical Deluge would lead us to expect in the strata and harmonizes perfectly with it. Of course, the only real basis of distinction between the earlier and later Tertiary deposits is paleontological, so that many of the physiographic evidences of ukplift are also discernible in the supposed earlier Tertiary beds, the Paleocene, Eocene and Oligocene. Thus, the entire Tertiary period seems to be characterized to a considerable extent by orogenic phenomena, as well as extensive volcanism. In general, the record of the entire Tertiary and early Quaternary, especially in the continental deposits, can be reasonably interpreted as preserving the record of the last phases of the Flood, including both the final deposits attributable to the original onset of the floodwaters and also the deposits and geomorphic phenomena related to the rising of the lands and sinking of the basins that terminated the inundation. On the other hand, it may well be found eventually that some deposits originally ascribed to the Tertiary period, as well as to the Pleistocene, are actually Recent (i.e., post-Deluge) deposits. Particularly may this be true in those deposits which are relatively unconsolidated. No generalizations on this point are advisable at present; each deposit must be considered on its own local evidence."