On Wed, 18 Feb 1998 01:17:35 -0500, Jim Bell wrote:
[...]
JB>Glenn, for one, has been asking why the geological evidence doesn't seem to
>give a picture of a global flood. This is from a uniformitarian position,
>of course, which assumes that the dynamics would have been exactly the same
>then as today. But is this premise valid?
To me the major problem with uniformitarianism (especialy among
theists) is that it implicitly denies that God could have intervened
in geological history and assumes in a strong sense that "the
present is the key to the past."
Indeed, this is precisely the situation that Peter predicts and
warns us agains in 2Pet 3:3-6:
"First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers
will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will
say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our
fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of
creation." (vv 3-4)
Peter's argument against this naturalistic-uniformitarian position
is that in the past God has in fact intervened in this "everything"
that supposedly "goes on", once in creation itself:
"But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the
heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water."
and again in the Flood:
"By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and
destroyed." (v6)
Please note that I am not here saying that any particular
individividual is necessarily a "scoffer", or "following" his "own
evil desires".
JB>I went back to Genesis 8 and read the following in verse 1:
>
>"But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that
>were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters
>receded." (NIV)
>
>A couple of things struck me. It was not that the waters abated normally.
>God sent a wind to do the job. Also, the word "recede" in the Hebrew is
>best translated "assuage" or "subside." In verse 3 it literally states the
>waters "returned" as a result.
>
>Now, the wind here is like the wind God used another time:
>
>"Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the
>LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry
>land." (Exodux 14:21, NIV)
>
>Check that out. The wind not only parted the waters, but made DRY LAND.
>That's certainly NOT what your uniformitarian would expect, is it?
>
>This, then, is my question: Could not the miraculous wind God used to dry
>the Earth make the Earth, many thousands of years later, look exactly
>like it does today? Might it indeed answer every single one of Gelnn's
>objections if this is the case?
Agreed. While I do not believe in a global Flood, I have pointed
out in past posts that the automatic assumption that Noah's Flood
left sediment is not supported by the Biblical account, or by
reason.
Any sediment today would be thick mud then. Moreover, such mud
would be covering the decaying bodies of Noah's former countrymen
and the animals. Clearly such a layer would be a serious threat to
life returning to normal. Apart from disease, what would the
grazing animals eat?
Moreover, there is no mention in Genesis of Noah and the animals
disembarking from the Ark onto a mud-covered landscape. The
impression given is of a quick return to normality.
As you point out, Genesis 8:1 ascribes the cause of the floodwaters
receding to a "wind". The word for "wind" [Heb. ruach] here is the
same word translated "Spirit" in Genesis Gn 1:2. There is a strong
but subtle parallelism between the Creation story in Genesis 1-3 and
the post-Flood re-establishment story in Genesis 8-9. If the "wind"
in Genesis 8:1 was the Spirit of Genesis 1:2, then there should be
no difficulty at all for theists in assuming that God supernaturally
removed all the water, along with the sediment and the dead human
and animal bodies.
Normally I don't like postulating miracles as an escape from
Biblical a difficulty, but here such a miracle is well supported by
both the Biblical text and the practical realities of re-
establishing the post-Flood environment in pristine condition so
life could return to normal. Indeed, those theists who deny this
one big miracle, would have to postulate a multitude of minor
miracles to explain how life quickly got back to normal in a
mud-covered landscape and how Noah's family were spared from disease
from rotting human and animal carcases.
I do not believe in a global Flood for other reasons, but the lack
of sedimentary evidence is not one of them.
Steve
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Stephen E (Steve) Jones ,--_|\ sejones@ibm.net
3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Steve.Jones@health.wa.gov.au
Warwick 6024 ->*_,--\_/ Phone +61 8 9448 7439
Perth, West Australia v "Test everything." (1Thess 5:21)
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