Genesis 7 and 8 - The Flood

Based on Chapter 7 and 8 of Genesis, I have summarised the timeline and the critical activities in the following chart (adapted from Matthew Kneisler at www.arksearch.com):

In total, Noah, his family and the animals spent a total of 378 days in the ark.

The Flood: Universal or Local? 

There are protracted debates over the question whether the flood that occurred during Noah's time was local or universal.  Unlike the identity of the Sons of God in Chapter 6 where it is not critical on the view one holds, the Bible here clearly, in my view, showed that the flood was universal.  There are many reasons for holding this view.

If the flood was local, there will be no need for God to gather all the animals to the ark nor for Noah to build the ark in the first place.  He could have moved Noah, his family and the animals to another place where the flood did not impact.  Afterall, they had 120 years to do just that.  

If the flood was local, in the same vein, the rest of the people could have moved further away from the local flood area by foot or by some form of flotation devices.  Surely, some could have survived the flood if it was local.

The language in chapter 7 and 8 also make a local flood a little hard to grapple with.  The Bible mentioned the following:

The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. [Gen 7:19]

The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered. [Gen 7:20]

The water prevailed upon the earth one hundred and fifty days. [Gen 7:24]

and the water receded steadily from the earth, and at the end of one hundred and fifty days the water decreased. [Gen 8:3]

The water decreased steadily until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains became visible. [Gen 8:5]

People who argue against a universal flood do so for "scientific" reasons (you can see Hugh Ross' arguments here).  It's interesting that some of them defer to the scientific "evidences" against a local flood and yet in the same breath, reject the scientific "evidences" for evolution.

To me, the strongest evidence for a universal flood is the promise made to Noah by God at the end of the flood in Gen 8:21-22

and the LORD said to Himself, "I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.  While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."      

If it was a local flood, then God has not kept His promise as there were records of deadly local floods since then.  Some try to circumvent this by saying that unlike the Noah's flood which destroyed every living thing, the subsequent local floods did not.  My rebuttal is that why do these people insist on reading the term "every living thing" in Gen 8:22 literally but not the "all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered" statement in Gen 7:19.  You can't have it both ways in a single narrative. 

Here are other interesting points from Chapter 7 and 8:

(1) In Genesis 7:2-3, an elaboration of the gathering of the animals was revealed.  Besides the gathering of one pair (male and female) of the animals, God instructed Noah to further gathering 7 pairs of clean animals.  The Bible did not explain the purpose but we do know that one pair of each of the clean animals were offered as burnt offering to God after the flood (Genesis 8:20).  The interesting thing to note here is that before the Mosaic Law, it was apparent that people during Noah's time did know the categorisation of clean and unclean animals.  This bolster the view that Cain and Abel did know what was expected of them in terms of the sacrifices that was demanded by God.

(2) The flood was caused from 2 sources: (a) all the fountains of the great deep burst open and (b) the floodgates of the sky were opened, both on the same day.  The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights and while it is not mentioned in the Bible, it is most probable that the fountains of the great deep also continued to pour forth water for the same duration as the Bible mentioned in Gen 8:2 that the same fountains of the deep were closed only at the end of the flood. 

(3) Recall a previous post discussing the role Methuselah, Noah's grandfather, played in the timeline of the flood.  Based on the genealogy in Genesis 5, Methuselah died in the year the flood came upon the earth.  His name ([his] death, shall bring) was actually a prophetic message and some have speculated that his death actually triggered the rain (Gen 7:6) and Noah was graciously given an additional 7 days (Gen 7:10) to mourn the death of Methuselah.  Just an interesting bit for you to chew on...

(4) Given such a catacylsmic event, it would be seared in the memories of the Noah and his family, and that this event would have been passed down to the subsequent generations.  And indeed they were.  However, people assumed that later accounts copied from the earlier accounts, that the Genesis account of the flood was copied from the earlier Babylonian myth in the Epic of Gilgamesh.  It is interesting that even in wikipedia, the contributors chose to record this one act of "plagarism" to only the Genesis account and not the more than 20 flood accounts there.

(5) If we assume that accounts get more embellished the later they are recorded, then the Genesis account would get the right to be the oldest account.  There was no embellishment in the Genesis account, the detailed dimensions of the ark was recorded and shown to make sense from the stability point of view, and the time intervals between each significant flood event were also "painstakingly" recorded.  This is in stark contrast to others as you can read from the wikipedia reference.

(6) Genesis 8:1 records yet another expression of anthropomorphism where the Bible seems to hint that God has forgotten about Noah.  It is interesting to note that this particular verse seldom gets pick on.

(7) The receding of the flood waters seem to have occurred naturally.  The water also apparently did not "return" to the fountains of the deep since the Bible only recorded that God closed them (Gen 8:2).  So where did all the water went?  Based on the timeline above, the waters would have had 331 days to evaporate and at the same time, the weight of all these waters would have drastically change the topology of the earth somewhat, with new valleys and mountains being created by the force of the waters.  This 331 days would seem to be unnecessary if it was only a local flood.

(8) Noah's method of checking whether the water has receded and the choice of birds used are intriguing.  It also help draw out the important lesson that humans need to play their part in the overall plan of God.  Noah obviously did not sit in the ark waiting for God to tell him that the water had receded.  He took the responsibility and the active role to find that out for himself.  Once Noah had done his part, God stepped in immediately to instruct him what needed to be done.

I will talk about Genesis 8:15-22 together with the next chapter to explain the 2nd covenant found in the Bible - The Noahic Covenant.