This is prompted by a recent posting that you made to Glenn.
One does not need to be an evolutionist to believe that the Flood was
local. In fact, this view is fairly common among progressive creationists.
Hugh Ross, one of the best known progressive creationists on this side of
the Atlantic holds to a local-flood view and has produced tapes and
writings expounding this view, but he does believe that the flood was
anthropologically global.
Considerations such as the fact that several times the volume of water
available would be required to submerge all the land and that the Flood
did not float the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets give a strong
indication that the Flood was not global. These considerations have
absolutely nothing to do with biological evolution. Also, from Genesis the
slow rate at which the waters receded during most of the abatement period
(less than 45 feet in four months (Gen. 6:15 and 8:4-11)) suggest that the
water may not have been deep enough to cover Mt. Everest.
The Hebrew word 'erets is usually translated land (more than twice as
often as it is translated earth). Even in some cases when it is translated
earth it is obvious that it does not mean the entire planet.
Interestingly, one such instance is in the Flood account itself. Genesis
8:9 says that the water was on the surface of all the earth, but we know
from Gen. 8:5 that at that time it did not cover everything on earth
because mountain tops were visible. A similar phrase elsewhere might have
the same meaning.
Concerning why the Lord didn't send Noah to a place that wasn't going to
be flooded, consider II Peter 2:5. Noah was a preacher of righteousness.
He would not have been obedient to his call if he had moved away from the
world of the ungodly.
Gordon Brown
Department of Mathematics
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0395
On Fri, 18 Jun 1999, Vernon Jenkins wrote:
> Why
> have poor Noah build a large ocean-going vessel when he (with his family
> and animals) could have traversed the globe in the time available?
>
> Glenn, you claim to be a serious student of the Word of God, but as I
> see it, for you, it is the doctrine of evolution that ever 'calls the
> tune'! Am I not correct?