Vernon,
Your question was to Glen. But since it was also sent out to the whole list
I'll respond to it.
You wrote: no doubt you will remember that a significant item in the list is
the guarantee that "neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters
of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth."
(Gen.9:11). ... That all seems clear enough - but only if the Flood had been
_global_ - for manifestly, since Noah's day, there have been many _local_
floods - some of which have wiped out whole communities. May I ask how you as
a Christian and local flood theorist make sense of this matter.
The Hebrew word which is translated as "earth" in Gen. 9:11 is much more
often translated in the Old Testament as "land," such as in "the land of
Shinar" and "the land of Canaan." Same word. Look it up.
So, God was not promising Noah that He would never again allow a flood to
destroy any land area on Earth. He was telling Noah that He would never again
allow a flood to destroy the land Noah then called home. The land that was
then completely destroyed by the Genesis flood was the land of Noah, a land
which Bible historians refer to as "Mesopotamia," a land which is now located
in southern Iraq. Since the time of Noah's flood this land has never again
been completely destroyed by a flood. Though it has since that time
experienced some small amount of flooding when the Tigress and Euphrates
Rivers have overflowed their banks, no flood has since that time ever again
destroyed the area of land which Noah once called home.
By the way, the flood of Noah's day could not have been either geographically
or anthropologically global. For scientists assure us that our earth has
never been completely covered with water at any time since land masses first
emerged from its once global sea many millions of years ago. And many
indisputable physical facts prove that our earth could certainly not have
been completely flooded with water at anytime within the last 50,000 years.
(Among them is a similar number of annually deposited layers of ice which
have been counted in Greenland and Antarctica. They show no disturbance by
any global flood during the time of their being laid down.)
Bible chronology dates Noah's flood within the last 5,000 years. And the
historical setting described in Genesis tells us that the flood must have
occurred within the last 10,000 years. For Genesis tells us that at the time
of the flood people were herding animals, raising crops, forging metals and
building cities, things which science assures us did not take place on earth
any earlier than 10,000 years ago. Science also assures us that North America
has been continually inhabited for 15,000 years and Australia for 30,000
years.
So when did Noah's "global" flood take place?
The facts of scripture and science combine to clearly show that Noah's flood
could not have been global, it could not have killed all people on the earth
who were then outside the ark, and we cannot all be Noah's descendants. Thus
God's promise to Noah about never again allowing a flood to destroy the land
must have referred only to the land of Noah. God has kept this promise.
Mike
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