Biblical The Great Flood, why?

Question

The bible says that the flood covered the whole of earth to a depth of forty feet.
When it receded, where did all the water go to?
More to the point; where did it come from? There has only ever, and always will be, an exact amount of water on the earth which keeps getting re-cycled via the water cycle.

Answer 1

dont take the bible literally....

Answer 2

First of all, where did the bible say anything about 40 feet? There have been warm periods when the ice caps have melted a lot and the water level on the planet has raised. I remember reading somewhere that if all the ice melted, the oceans could be about 50 feet higher. This kind of flooding has happened many times, in between ice ages.

Noah's flood supposedly covered all the land on the planet. Surely even those who wrote the bible or told the legends which led to it, realized that 40 feet wouldn't cover nearly enough land so that Noah would be adrift for several months. Even the stupidest story-teller knew about hills and mountains in those days.

Despite the tireless efforts of fundies, there has been no evidence indicating a sudden flood of anything like that magnitude. Keep in mind, these are the same people who cling to the Ussher chronology and will tell you that this flood occurred only about 6000 years ago.

No, the flood of Noah didn't happen. It's a myth. So don't bother asking scientific questions like where the water came from and where it went. If you believe in God-miracles, then you never need to ask that question, anyway. An omnipotent God can do anything he wants, right? Make the water appear, then make it disappear. Although the biblical view is entirely wrong, at least it is a lot easier to understand.

Answer 3

The whole earth to the people that told the stories of Noah's flood was a might small place. The flooding of the Mediterranean Sea would have been geologically much too early to have been recorded by man. A better candidate is the flooding of the Black Sea when the land separating this below sea level basin was breach by the Mediterranean Sea. This is now called the Straits of Bosporus. This is geologically more recent and a better candidate.

Answer 4

Glacial melt could have contributed to the basis of the story with the characters added in at a later time. Many people during that era were fascinated with writing tales of morality and punishment.



If the excess glacial melt water broke through a point where the mountains were weakend, it would have spilled into the sea.



And like I said in a response to another question, even if a tiny area flooded over there, they would have thought the whole earth was covered. The story got passed down generation after generation and the other elements such as the ark and animals were added in to help make a convincing argument as to why one should heed the warnings of "God".

Answer 5

The folks who collected, discussed, and selected previously acquired written accounts drawn from oral accounts, records

of other authorities, and weighed on the scales of what was

a desired result for effect of entire content then I submit that The Holy Bible is worthy enough to keep. It alone is not

the last word. The King James Bible was another. Islam is

another. The point is our road to understanding remains open and we have accounting's yet to be resolved. What we

lack is the ability and will to do so. The good news is our

ability to build better bridges may yet better unite us.



It would help if we preserved the other things that still exist from the 'cutting room floor' that did not suit the desired effect simply because they too represent every much our previous historical wealth as The Holy Bible. We, the logic based establishment of our times, need to examine all the evidence available. This includes the sealed vaults in Vatican City,

Rome. Where else do we go for truth? Who has claim? Salt Lake City, Utah? Are there sealed temple vaults there too?



Otherwise, people will continue to view only part of the total story of our previous existence and reach less than accurate conclusions.

Answer 6

Yes and the world clearly wasn't created in 7 days.



We shouldn't take the bible literally. I think most modern Christians now believe that the old testament is just stories probably in existence to come up with reasons for scientific things they couldn't explain. Although they can get God's inspiration from them, they don't actually believe them (apart from the Creationists which is a whole other kettle of fish). What would seem like the whole world being flooded might only have been their own area - remember they didn't even know the world was round so they would have had no concept of the world as a whole.

Answer 7

Instead of just displaying your ignorance, perhaps you should consider what the Bible actually says, and consider some of the actual evidence.

If ll the land mass on earth were 'leveled off' then the land would be covered by sea to a depth of over 1 mile. So you could say it's fortunate that there is any dry land at all.

As for where the water came from - most of it came from underground - the 'fountains of the deep'. Even today there is much water in underground aquifers. It is interesting to consider how it got there. The pressure is too great for it to have seeped down from above.



If you want to find out more about the subject of Noah's flood (instead of hurling ignorant abuse), then you cannot do better than browse here.

http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3000/

Answer 8

Hi there



When the Holy Quran tells about the incident it never says that the whole of the earth was covered. And the water came from two places: One from the sky and the other from underneath the ground.

Answer 9

Well, it just goes to show what you know, doesn't it?



Everyone knows that the Great Dribbling Monster from a small planet somewhere in the region of Beetlejuice stopped off here for a rest and a quick dribble round about the time you are talking about.



In fact, the Great Dribbling Monster, whilst here, also relieved itself - the very remains of which still exist to this very day.



We call it Australia and the people that live there think they can play cricket . . . . .

Answer 10

Sorry, can't answer your question but how's this for weird?. As I read you question a documentary called "Noah's flood" came on to BBC Prime. It's looking at scientific explanations for the flood.



They are saying it's all to do with "counter currents" in the Black sea.

Answer 11

its obvious, god went to another planet like, well i dont know which one but he did and he took all of that planets water and put it on earth and then took it back again once all the dirties had been washed away, heaven knows where they went though... denver?

Answer 12

1st recorded incidence of Global Warming.

Answer 13

ice caps, global warming is going to bring it back, right?

Answer 14

it was God who did that dude.. he can create something out of nothing.. and probably can destroy/remove something and turn it into nothing..

Answer 15

Monty,



There alot of mentally challenged individuals out there. If you are looking for scientific answers, there are some, to support the biblical flood. Bue the brainiacs above me mostly haven't got a clue.



I am a Christian AND a geologist and I have absolutely NO problem relating the two.



Orogeny is the process of mountain building. It has been going on since God created the earth. A mountain range can build in just a few months under the correct conditions. Take into account plate tectonics, an event that caused all of the moisture to leave the atmosphere in a global rain, and the melting of whatever ice was on the planet, and a planet that had very low mountains because of recent glaciation and it is possible.



In looking for a possible natural catastrophic cause of the great flood many theories have been proposed. Looking back at the Esquimaux tradition we note the following characteristics. High water, strong wind, high heat, large waves, uprooted and floating vegetation, and trembling cold. One possible scenario which might account for a majority of these factors is large amounts of volcanic type activity along portions of the subsurface ocean ridges for a short time.



Should greatly increased activity along the plate lines cause heating of the oceans along these lines there would be many large and terrible "super" storms which would greatly disturb the climate of the entire globe. NOAA is currently doing research on the subsurface plate lines and they have discovered many indicators of recent and current subsurface activity. And nearly all scientists agree that the materials along the subsurface spreading ridge lines are of recent origin. It is also possible that the flow could be of such a magnitude as to cause changes in the sea level. For example, the surface flow area of the Columbia lava plateau covers over 200,000 square miles and in places is up to a mile thick. Also possibly the polar ice caps would be temporarily melted. After the volcanic activity stopped there would be a transition period as climatic activity decreased and lesser affected areas of the extreme north and south continents would return to frigid climates, but with greatly increased moisture in the atmosphere it is theorized that an ice age would result.



We all know how catastrophic can be the effects of only a 3 degrees Centigrade increase of ocean surface temperature due to the past El Nino. When El Nino is active, a giant high pressure system centered near Easter Island drops slightly in pressure and touches off a change in Pacific currents, bringing warmer water in certain areas and colder water to others. An area 600 miles northwest of Easter Island was found to have 1133 seamounts and volcanoes, far more than any other area known on dry land or under the ocean. In 1995, scientists reported that a spate of undersea quakes and lava eruptions had preceded the onset of the El Nino cycle then in effect. Dr. Daniel A. Walker, a geophysicist at the University of Hawaii, said that the seismic activity was the most unusual it had been in 30 years and tentatively linked it to El Nino. Greater increases on a global scale would obviously cause destruction of a greater magnitude.



Using available computer simulation models it is possible to a limited extent to simulate the possible rainfall effects of the theorized condition. Of course, there have been many proposed theories as to the configuration of the global surface at the time of the flood, but for now it is convenient to assume that this configuration was as it is today. Fig 3 below shows one possible rainfall configuration for the Mediterranean area as we know it today which is shown as a visual reference. And Fig 4 below shows one very limited computer simulation in which global rainfall amounts are shown to be increased up to 10 times.



To greatly increase the amount of water on the earth would require a rather large size object since the earth presently has approximately 340 x 10*6 cubic miles of water. A Pluto-type ice sphere of 320 miles in diameter would increase the water on the earth by about 5 percent. Pluto itself is 1450 miles in diameter. One comet that recently visited our skies was about 25 miles wide. It would be hard to imagine the catastrophic destruction that the impact of a 320-mile wide ice comet would cause to planet Earth.



More reasonable would seem to be a swarm of small ice comets over a few days time period. Quite possibly the Earth in its orbit could enter a band of small ice comets which shower the Earth with a considerable amount of water in a few days time period. Or also there is the possibilty of the Earth orbit encountering the remains of a large comet that was broken up by impacts or encounters with the outer planets or their gravitational forces, or as will be shown below, a comet broken up by the heating effects of our Sun. Theoretically the larger outer planets such as Jupiter and Saturn work like sweepers to clean up a lot of the space trash before it comes into the neighborhood of our lesser planet Earth. For example the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacted Jupiter over a period of 7 days (July 16 - July 22, 1994) with 20+ observable fragments.



"Rabbi Moses Ben Nachman, a Jew living in Spain, wrote of God taking two stars from Khima and throwing them at the earth in order to begin the great flood. (from "Comets in Ancient Cultures" By Noah Goldman U. Maryland, College Park Scholars) An indicator that the flood comet appeared in the sky as a twin comet.



After being broken up and dispersed by the heating effects of the sun while still in space the fragmented comet must enter our atmosphere which is very hard on intruding high speed space objects! A very large percentage of them are broken up or "exploded" by the experience. Even iron meteorites such as the Gibeon meteorite, 90% iron, which was apparently a large object that burst high in the atmosphere and produced a debris field 70 miles (120 km) wide by 230 miles (390k km) long. The breakup was so complete that no major craters have ever been identified even though many masses between 100 and 500 kg have been found, and in the past few years an increasing number of small Gibeon meteorites have been located as modern metal detection equipment has allowed meteorite hunters to find the smaller specimens. (see news stories on latest meteorite shower) The majority of comet material would be considerably more fragile than that of most meteorites or asteroids.



It should also be noted that any natural cause for the flood must be relatively short-lived. In order for the larger animals and humans to survive, the area where they landed should return to near normal in just a few seasons. The Biblical chronology requires the heavy rains to stop after 40 days and for land to become dry enough for the occupants of the ark to emerge after 1 year and 17 days. After 11 months and 18 days plant growth has to have reappeared when the dove returned with a plucked leaf. And within a short time Noah was able to plant and harvest a vineyard. If the ocean waters were heated considerably due to subsurface volcanic activity along the mid-ocean ridges as proposed, it would take a relatively long time for ocean cooling back to near normal, possibly as long as 500 years or more.



How long it would take to return to near normal growing seasons due to an ice comet shower would seem to depend upon the size and number of comet fragments and the percentage of solid material versus water contained within the comets. The larger the number of fragments, the smaller the fragments and the higher the percentage of water, the faster the Earth atmosphere and surface could return to normal. The heavy rainfall from that portion of the comet's water that vaporized in the atmosphere would clean the air and minimize the effect of dust clouding from land impacts. Assuming a nearly optimal comet shower condition, probably portions of the Earth could return to normal growing seasons in a relatively short time, say within a decade or less. Since the major portion of the Earth surface is water, the probabilities are that most of the comet material that did not turn to vapor in the atmosphere and reached the surface would impact on water covered areas. This would not be inconsistent with the wording of the Scriptures since the Hebrew words translated as "fountains of the great deep broken up", can also be translated as "cleaved". In fact "to cleave" is the basic meaning of this Hebrew word "baqa" (Strong's # 1234), which is the opening up of an object due to a striking. The ice comet shower would also seem to better fit the Biblical record in that the heavy rains and great disturbances to the seas would start in a very short time after the impact of the first fragment with the atmosphere and the seas, and the heavy rains and the disturbances to the waters would start to decrease not long after the last major fragment had impacted. Therefore, if a high water content comet much larger than Shoemaker-Levy 9 was fragmented into say 100+ major fragments and many, many smaller fragments and impacted the Earth over approximately 40 days the result would seem to closely fit the Biblical record.





I hope this helps you...personally, I don't try to bend my mind around God's actions...it hurts too much to try. I just accept His Word as absolute truth. Just because I cant explain it doesnt mean it aint true...heh.