At 05:31 PM 2/25/98, Greg Billock wrote:
>While Biblical writers probably weren't young-earth creationists in the
>modern sense, they seem to share many of the same views. Since the
>modern movement claims continuity with these people, it is interesting
>to examine what exactly those views were. Some, like you point out, have
>been abandoned by the modern movement (firmaments and whatnot). There
>are probably other differences, and I'm wondering what it is possible
>to say about any that may exist with respect to the flood.
I think most of the ancients simply accepted the flood without giving it
much thought, like we accept the changing of water to wine.
I may be wrong on this, but the earliest I have been able to find reference
to the vapor canopy, is Isaac Vail in The Deluge and Its Cause, 1905. I
know that the church fathers did not hold to a vapor canopy so the modern
movement has added this feature. They have added it as a means of explaining
the mechanics of the flood, which the ancients didn't try to do.
There were a few ancient Christians who argued for local flood on the basis
that there were too many animals to fit onto the ark. But they were the rarity.
glenn
Adam, Apes, and Anthropology: Finding the Soul of Fossil Man
and
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm