On Thu, 18 Jan 2001, Vernon Jenkins wrote:
> I'm sure we can agree that it was God's intention to 'clear the decks'
> of defiled humanity, beast and bird, and begin again. And we can also
> agree, no doubt, that if the evolutionary scenario is correct, the
> entire globe would be teeming with life by the time the biblical
> judgment was effected. But since it is chiefly to mollify the
> evolutionist that a local flood is being demanded, it is clear that
> God's true intent must, necessarily, be watered down (no pun intended).
> The resort of taking refuge behind the many-faceted Hebrew word 'eretz'
> is, in my view, disingenuous.
Vernon,
The judgment was because of man's sin. Aquatic animals are omitted from
the list of creatures to be blotted out. A flood would not destroy them.
The land animals in the region to be flooded would perish, but Noah saved
a few of the various kinds by taking them with him on the ark. These would
be useful to him before others could migrate in from unflooded regions.
(See Gen. 8:7-12,20; 9:3.)
Your statement that it is chiefly to mollify the evolutionist that a local
flood is being demanded is a reckless charge. One need not be an
evolutionist to ask where all the extra water for the Flood came from or
where it went or why the Flood didn't float the Greenland and Antarctica
ice sheets or how the sloths got to South America. If one notes that the
ancients didn't know that the earth was a globe nor how large it was and
that their word for it could just as well refer to part of it, a local
flood appears to be an option, and, in fact, many nonevolutionists take
this view. When people try to explain away the problems I mentioned with
the global flood theory, they often tend to come up with solutions that
are at variance with the apparent meaning of other passages of scripture.
Gordon Brown
Department of Mathematics
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0395
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