I have taken several weeks to look at the biblical account of Noah and the flood from a common sense/logic standpoint. I have used as my reference work in the project the account from the bible itself. My report is about 5 pages long. I made it into a pdf and uploaded it to my server so as not to use too much bandwidth from this site for just one post/topic. If you wish to download the file instead of viewing it online then right click the link and choose save link as or save target as depending on what browser you are using.

LINK DELETED (Fred Williams)

The new link still didn't work, in fact ZoneAlarm complained that it was a spy site. I'm deleting all the posts with the bad links. I suggest you just post snippets or important points to the forum.

I have done some condensing of material. Here it is.


Noah and the flood

Noah's Ark and the worldwide flood have captured the imagination of millions for more than 2000 years. It has been written about, discussed, dissected and hotly debated in newspapers, books, magazines, and on the radio, tv and internet. There are those who believe it to be just as written in the Bible, those who are just as certain that it never happened and is just a parable while the rest just try to make sense of it all. I grew up in a non-religous home, but still I knew the story of Noah and the Ark. It always bothered me that something wasn't right with the account even though I could never place my finger on exactly what it was. Recently, I decided to look at the account from a common sense/logic point of view. In making my decision to write about what I found, I knew I would be putting myself in the middle of controversy but still I felt compelled to do it. I chose as the Bible to work from, The New American Standard Bible, which I believe is the standard for the Catholic Church. When all is said and done will this change anything? Probably not. Those who are rigid in their convictions will stay that way and those who are unsure may be more confused after reading this then they were before, but maybe, just maybe, it will help people think and ask questions not thought or asked before, maybe not. In the end I did this not to change anyones mind or their beliefs but for me because I wanted to. I share it with all who wish to read it and ponder what I have pondered.

In deciding to write about this I felt the need for some kind of chronology or time line to keep pertinent parts of the biblical account in order. The following chronology, based on the biblical account of the flood is what I have used in my research. The format is month/day of occurrence, the event itself and the number of days pre-flood start and post-flood start.

NOTE: Bold dates are dates given in the bible while non-bold dates are calculated based on passage of days indicated in the bible.

2/10 God commands Noah to gather animals -7
2/17 Start of flood 0
3/26 Rain stops after 40 days/40 nights 40
7/17 Ark comes to rest on mountains of Ararat 150
7/17 Waters begin to recede at a steady pace 150
10/1 Tops of the mountains become visible 224
11/11 Window opened and raven and dove released first time 264
11/18 Dove released second time and returns with olive branch 271
11/25 Dove released final time and does not return 278
1/1 Covering removed from ark 314
2/27 Earth is dry and Noah and family leave ark 370

IMPORTANT NOTE: Genesis 7:11 says: "In the six hundreth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened." This passage has been used by some to indicate that the flood started on the second month, seventeenth day of the year. However, it does not say the second month of the year but the second month of the six hundreth year of Noah's life and unless Noah was born on the first day of the first month then the dates are not literal but relative and the flood could have begun in any month of the year.



The decision to cleanse the Earth

God's decision to destroy man and animals and his use of the flood to do so is confusing to say the least. Why would God react to mans wickedness as if it were something he just discovered? Being omniscient, he would have known before he even created man the wickedness that would ensue. Also why would God have used a worldwide flood to destroy the wicked humans and animals? As an all powerful being, God could simply have thought them out of existence, leaving only those behind he wished.



The Ark

In Genesis 6:14 Noah is told by God to build an Ark using Gopher Wood. There is no corroborating documentation for the existence of gopher wood from any other source. Some believe that Gopher as indicated means a process rather than a type of wood itself. I found that the Hebrew letters K and G are very similar and I believe it would have been easy to write the wrong one during a translation or copying and have it go unnoticed. Kopher/Kophar wood is described as wood covered with pitch which is exactly what is called for in the bible. The actual type of wood used would probably have been whatever was commonly used for shipbuilding at that time. The size of the ark was to be 300 x 50 x 30 cubits or 450 x 75 x 45 ft using the 18 inch per cubit measurement, with rooms inside, a window 1 cubit from the top (18 inches) and a door in the side at the main deck level and lower second and third decks. This was big enough to carry what I estmate were about 1000 animals, 8 humans and supplies for all.


What shape the ark was to have been is not specified in the bible and there are at least two schools of thought on what it might have looked like. If Noah and his sons, farmers by trade, had built the ark, It would most likely have been a rectangular shape due mostly to Noah's and his sons lack of shipbuilding experience. If local ship/boat builders were included or hired to do the job then it would most likely have had the classic form with pointed bow and flat stern. It is important to note that Structural defects and flaws may have crept into the work because of the lack of shipbuilding experience of Noah and his sons.


In Genesis 6:3 God indicates that the number of mans days is 120 years. At first it seems to be an indication that God is telling Noah that there are 120 years until he brings the flood. A couple things make it clear that this is not correct. First the passage indicates that the limitation is because man is flesh and not because God is angry. Second, Genesis 6 indicates that Noah is 500 years old. If the 120 year number were the time man had before he was destroyed by the flood then the flood would have to have happened in the 620th year of Noah's life but the bible clearly states it happened in the 600th year of Noah's life. How much actual time was allowed for the building of the ark is unknown, however, with the elements a constant threat to the ark, it would most likely have been a shorter time then many assume.



The Animals/Supplies

In Genesis 7:1-2 Noah is told to gather 7 pairs of every clean animal and bird but just 1 pair of every unclean animal and bird . Using various passages in the Bible we can estimate that there are 33 animals and birds considered clean and 101 that are considered unclean. That comes out to 462 clean animals and 202 unclean animals for a total of 664 animals. Adding the additional animals needed to feed the carnivores would bring the total to about 1000. In Genesis 7:3 God says he will bring the rains to begin the flood in another 7 days. God indicates in Genesis 6:20 that the animals and birds would come to him (Noah) and that week would be enough time to load them onto the ark.

Genesis 6:21 is the only place to list the supplies for Noah's trip. Noah is commanded by God to take some of all food which is edible. Though not mentioned, water would have been necessary for survival was well. With the supplies (food and water) needed to feed all the inhabitants of the ark, it would have been a major undertaking just to stock the ark for a year. If we look at the water required with 1000 humans/animals on the ark and an average of 1 gallon of water per day per animal/human (taking into account some would drink more, some less) that is 1000 gallons of water per day or 370,000 gallons of water for the 370 days they were on the ark minus 40,000 gallons of water because they could have used rainwater the first 40 days would have left 330,000 gallons that would have to be stored. A jar that could hold 5 gallons of water would weigh about 45 pounds and would have been about the maximum weight you would want to haul to different parts of the ark to water the animals during the long voyage. That would ammount to 66,000 5 gallon jars . If it took 10 minutes to take a full jar into the ark, secure it properly and return for another and if all 8 family members were helping, It would taken 86 days at 16 hours a day just to load the water. If we assume an equal ammount of time to load the food required to feed them all then we are looking at 6 months just to load the stores. The weight of the stores would be an estimated 2000 - 3000 tons. Note: Some animals, like the panda can eat only specific types of plants that have never grown in the middle east and would not have been available for Noah to harvest.



The Flood

The flood began in the 2nd month, the 17th day of the month of the 600th year of Noah's life. I have chosen 2623BC as the flood date. There are several dates listed by various sources, but not agreed upon as the date of the flood ranging from 2345 BC to 2900 BC and my choice falls about in the middle. 370 days passed from the start of the flood until the land was dry and the ark was emptied of humans and animals though by day 150 the waters had begun to recede.

The effects of a worldwide flood should have been plainly visible once the waters had receded. At the very least, monuments, such as the pyramids in Egypt and structures in other lands that were built before the flood should have shown water marks and damage as well as signs of mud and silt inside and out. Areas of large numbers of animal fossils are pointed to as proof of the biblical flood. If that is true there should also be a large number of human fossil graveyards as well as large number of human/animal mixed fossil graveyards but they have not been discovered. All plantlife would have been destroyed because of the ammount of time under the water without sufficient sunlight. The mixing of fresh and salt water would have killed off most if not all species of fresh water fish that were salt sensitive and there should have been thousands or millions floating dead on the waters and littering the ground afterward. The dead animals, fish and birds that were not buried by silt would have been perfect places for disease organisms to multiply, infecting the entire planet.



Post Flood

The bible tells us that the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. There are those who believe this does not necessarily mean Mt Ararat itself, but any of the mountains in the Ararat chain. Some even have their “Proofs” that the ark actually landed on a mountain other than Ararat. The bible does and does not support this though. The bible indicates that the ark comes to rest on the mountains of Ararat on the seventh month, seventeenth day but that the mountain tops were not visible until the tenth month, first day or 74 days later. With the mountains underwater when the ark came to rest, it could only have come to rest on the tallest mountain of the Ararat range and that is Mt Ararat itself. The bible also says that after leaving the ark Noah plants a vineyard and that would not have been possible on the summit because of environmental conditions but would have been possible at a lower level of Ararat or on one of the other lower mountains. That of course would only have been possible if the flood level was lower than the peaks of the mountains.

This indication from bible passages that the ark came to rest on Mount Ararat or lower tells us that the flood did not cover all the mountains of the whole world. Mt Everest, the tallest mountain in the world is 12,000 ft higher than Ararat. Since the bible indicates the water receded steadily (Genesis 8:3) and there is no indication of a large sudden drop in the waters then the water which was about 15 cubits higher than Ararat could not have covered Mt Everest. Areas higher than Mt Ararat may have contained people, animals and birds that survived the flood.

There is nothing in the Bible about the conditions at the site the ark came to rest after the flood waters receded. Assuming that sea level pressure and temperature remained constant regardless of what level the water was, then there would have been no difficulties during the rise in water and the ark coming to rest as the ark would have remaied at "sea level". However, with the ark at rest on the summit of Mt Ararat and the waters having receded to their normal levels, problems would have surfaced. Air pressure at the summit would only be 40% of normal and the average temperatures would range from 0 C to -40 C. The combination of the two could result in any or all of the following: Altitude Sickness, Frostbite, Hypothermia and Fluid Buildup on the brain and lungs. Further, Ararat itself would have been quite dangerous. Quantities of carbon dioxide mixed with reduced oxygen on the upper slopes would have caused confusion and illness. Fog often blankets large areas of the mountain and dangerous lightning exists even at the upper levels. All combined, attempting to traverse from the summit to the base of Ararat without proper climbing gear and equipment would have been guaranteed death. That of course would be conditions at the summit of Mt Ararat but not at lower levels where the dangers would not necessarily exist.

Survival after the flood could have been difficult and quite dangerous. A flood of the scope suggested by the biblical account would have wiped out all plant life. Noah and his family may have been able to survive with stores remaining on the ark but the animals and birds set free would not have survived long because of the time required to regrow plantlife from surviving seeds. The grass eaters and birds would have made it perhaps a week and the carnivores longer as they could have fed on the dead and dying herbivores and birds. Once the food supply for the carnivores was exhausted then they would have turned on each other and some may have returned to the ark site in search of Noah and his family.



Repopulation

Animal
The 600-700 animals and birds on the ark (who were not food for the carnivores during the trip) would have been sufficient to repopulate their species except for the lack of food on the surface (see the survival paragraph above). Any who may have been lucky enough to survive until the plantlife regenerated could have begun the repopulation if not too weakened from the wait and constant threat from the carnivores. Aquatic species sensitive to salt content could have been killed off because of the flood. Certain species are native only to certain continents and if they were aboard the ark there should be fossils found as some would die over time in getting to their final locations on others continents.

Plant
Since there is no indication in the Bible of Noah bringing shrubs or plants on to the ark, and since all plant life would have been destroyed by the flood where did they come from? Some seeds could have survived, and those plant species may have regrown if the seeds were not damaged by the salt concentrations in the water. Plant species with seeds that did not survive or those with no seeds should not exist today. Since no insect life was brought on to the ark, flowering plants that survived and regrew would have died out after the first season as there would have been no insect life to pollinate them. I know some pollination is done by the wind but it would not have been enough to maintain some of the plant species.

Human
Abram, born 292 years after the flood, leaves home at 75 years of age per God's instructions and visits the Land of Egypt, where he interracts with the people and ruling class of Egypt. The question is would the decendants of Noah, who would have had to be the ones to repopulate Egypt, have so readily and quickly changed their beliefs that in less than 300 years they would have gone from a belief in one God to the Pre-Flood beliefs in many Gods and the adoption of a Pharoh and cast system? Would they have chosen the exact same Gods as those worshiped in Egypt before the flood? Also if all the humans came from Noah and his sons, would not traditions have remained the same instead of the great differences that you find throughout the world today.



Other

Flood Accounts

There are numerous accounts of a world wide flood scattered around the globe and these have been pointed at as corroboration of the biblical account. There are two possible scenarios for these accounts:

Scenario #1 - Peoples in several lands record the flood at the time of occurrence

For this scenario to be plausible, the bible account of all human life being wiped from the world except for Noah and his family would have to be wrong and people In widely scattered regions of the globe would have to know about Noah, his family and the ark at the time of the floods occurrence. It is highly unlikely that such information was known everywhere in the world at the same time with most of the accounts are not closer to the biblical account.

Scenario #2 - The flood story is handed down from generation to generation, passed from father to son.

This satisfies the requirements for the various flood accounts around the world including the deterioration of the facts as some is lost or altered in each generation. However, only the oldest flood story would be the original while all others would be a retelling of the original. The Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh account of the flood, which is closest of all the stories to the biblical account, was written 1600 years before the biblical account making it the older of the two. In fact, The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest account of the flood which would make it the original with all other accounts the retellings passed down from father to son. NOTE: Moses wrote the biblical version of the flood story about 1450-1410 BC which would put the Epic of Gilgamesh at being written between 3050 BC and 3010 BC, pushing back the occurrence of the flood 400-600 years before that generally accepted by biblical scholars.

Time Gap

Noah plants a vineyard in Genesis 9:20 and is drinking the wine in 9:21. This is a major time gap in the account. We know it takes time, months, possibly years to grow a vineyard, crush the grapes, contain them and allow time to pass for the grapes and juice to ferment into wine, There is no account of what may have transpired during that time. Is it possible that information was lost before it could be written down?

Other Survivors

Something that was ignored in the account were ships that may have already been at sea, especially cargo or fishing ships. They would have stayed afloat much as the ark would have and the people on board may well have survived if they had access to provisions.



Contradictions

Genesis 8:8 and 8:9 tells us that Noah released a dove who found no resting place for the sole of her foot for water was on the surface of all the earth. This contradicts Genesis 8:5 which tells us that the tops of the mountains became visible and 8:9, 40 days later when Noah opened the window to release the dove. Genesis 8:3 tells us that the water receded steadily so between the time the mountain tops became visible and the dove was released even more land would have been dry. originally I thought that the events were out of order. That the ark came to rest, the window was opened 40 days later and the dove released then the mountain tops become visible, but if that is the chain of events then the dove finding the olive branch would have been 27 days before the tops of the mountains would be visible.

Genesis tells us that Noah was 500 years old when he had Shem, Ham and Japeth and that the flood occurred from the 600th year to 601st year of Noahs life. Shem had Arphaxad when he was 100 years of age and that Arphaxad was born two years after the flood. If the flood did occur in the 600th year of Noah's life, the 100th year of Shem's life, then Arphaxad would have to have been born during the flood and the bible clearly states he was born 2 years after the flood. The following are possibilities to explain this.

- Arphaxad was born when Shem was 102 and not 100
- Shem was born when Noah was 502 and not 500
- The flood actually occurred in the 598th year of Noah's life and not the 600th year.



Conclusions

Each person must come to their own conclusions concerning the account of the flood and Noah's ark.

My conclusion is that the biblical account was copied or gotten from the Epic of Gilgamesh and changes made to the story to insert Noah and his family. I am not saying Moses did this himself. It could have been a verbal account he got or one written up by another, but in any case the Epic of Gilgames, being the oldest account (written before 3000 BC) makes the biblical account (written between 1400 and 1500 BC) a retelling of that original account.


If there were no Epic of Gilgamesh or other flood accounts then the following would be my conclusion:

The biblical account of the flood reminds me of a hastily put together report by some teen for a high school class after having read the cliff notes version. At first glance it seems to be ok but when you look closer you see the errors and inconsistencies. The fact that the passages in the bible itself show that the flood could not have covered all the mountains of the world. That to survive after the flood the height of the waters had to be lower than generally accepted. The animals and birds facing certain extinction for lack of food. The lack of water damage to pyramids and other large structures. The decendants of Noah taking up the old ways in Egypt within a mere 300 years of the flood. The contradictions of the dove and dry land as well as Arphaxads birth in relation to the flood. Some of these inconsistencies detract from the authenticity of the account, some move the validity of the flood from global to regional and all of them combined with others listed above bring into question whether the account of Noah and the flood actually belongs in the bible.

Most of your objections have been refuted by Woodmorappe in “Noah’s Ark, A Feasibility Study”. I highly recommend this book. I will take a moment to address some of your claims here.



I believe you are misunderstanding the text. It does not say six hundred years after he was born, it says the six hundredth year of his life. This is likely a Hebrew language construct. Even in the English it isn’t far fetched to say that Kennedy was assassinated in the 46th year of his life in the 11th month I’m also not sure why you call this “important”.

I don’t have time to meticulously confirm your chronology but it looks accurate. An interesting thing about the 7th month and 17th day is that this was the same day as the anniversary of the institution of the Passover, and the day Christ rose from the dead. Our new beginning in Christ was on the anniversary of the Noah’s "new beginning"!



What kind of instructive lesson would that have been? There is a great deal of symbolic lessons in Noah’s flood such as purification by water (ie water baptism). I’ll leave it up to those interested to do further research on this.



That’s not possible. The Hebrews meticulously guarded the accuracy of the Bible, and it would have had greater accuracy than our current checksum/CRC methods. See my page on this at http://www.bibleevidences.com/transmission.htm.



That’s an extremely poor estimate. Creation scientist believe a very conservatively estimate of the number of kinds required to populate the earth would be 16,000. The 95,000 square feet of cargo space on Noah’s ark (equivalent to 522 railroad cars) could easily hold 16,000 animal “kinds”, it would only need 15 railroad cars to accommodate them! (See book mentioned in opening sentence).



As has been mentioned before on this forum, this is based on the assumption that the Pyramids were built before the flood. We know how reliable secular chronology is – not very as they carry the same baggage of assumptions that all dating methods carry. Finding C14 in coal, natural gas, diamonds, not only brings the evolutionist’s overall geologic timeline into question, it also disrupts their estimates of C14/C12 ratios in the past. It also makes one ask why we find so much X12/C14 buried all over the earth.



It’s remarkable you would ask this given this is not only easily explained by human ecological zones, but it is a far worse problems for evolutionists to explain the lack of stone-age graves given that they had MILLIONs of years to accumulate.



This has two flaws: 2) assumes same disparity of salt in water today as before the flood, 2) shows ignorance of the fact we have examples of fish that were able to adapt to either water type.



This shows an ignorance of creation science and the very plausible theories of pre-flood and post-flood conditions, various plate-tectonic theories, etc. In fact, one of the leading plate tectonic experts in the world is a creationist who was even featured in the very liberal Time Magazine (Dr. John Baumgardner). The global flood would have no doubt caused a great upheaval and would have easily produced an ice age.



Are you not aware of how rapidly volcano-ravaged areas can quickly rebound? It is true however that survival would not have been easy. For example, we figure the unicorn was the first animal off the ark, and the lion was the second.



This again relies on a biased chronology, but even if we accept yours, 300 years is plenty of time to do all this. It’s 12 generations after all! (evolutionists often use 20 years as the average generation time, I used 25 to be conservative).



You claim this yet you provide no evidence why the EofG is more plausible? This is no different than claiming aliens formed wheat circles. To be frank, your conclusion is the result of poor scholarship based on a myriad of inaccurate assumptions such as 1) how the Bible text was maintained, 1) condition of earth pre and post-flood, from size of mountains to salt content, 2) secular chronologies with their bias against the Bible, 3) failing to account for average human generation times, 4) size of ark, 5) dimension of ark, 6) ship-worthiness of other boats, etc.

I will close with one important fact that alone makes a very, very powerful case that the account in the Bible is the most plausible that all other flood legends originate come from. Highly regarded South Korean ship architects modeled the ark using the dimensions given in the Bible and they were unable to capsize it, even using conditions several times greater than the great tsusami a few years back. On the other hand, the dimensions given in the Epic of Gilgamesh was of a cube-shaped boat! Do you think anyone could survive in a cube-shaped boat for a year? It would spin endlessly. I’m sure Noah and his sons liked Six Flags as much as the next guy, but don’t you this would be a tad overkill? Don’t you think a Ferris Wheel on a stable boat would have more sufficed to meet the amusement needs of Noah and his family? You guys claim to love science. Noah’s ark as described in the Bible is scientifically the most accurate. Why would you claim the original account comes from the Epic of Gilgamesh since it clearly describes a scientifically unsound boat? IF you truly love science then on this fact alone you should reject your own conclusion.

I will again mention that anyone interested in this topic should get “Noah’s Ark, A Feasibility Study”, no matter what side of the isle you are on.

Fred

At this time I have no access to Woodmorappe's book as the local libraries do not carry it and my credit card was stolen and I am awaiting the issuance of a new one. I found a few snippets of the book on the internet but nothing more. Once I again have a credit card I will purchase and read the book



In no way was I infiring that it was 600 years after Noah was born. I was using the biblical text to show that the month/day indications in the bible as they refer to the account of the flood were not litereral as in 2/17 meaning February 17 but were relative to the month and day Noah was born. Ex: Noah born June 1 would make 2/17 July 17.



With everyone but Noah and his family eliminated by the flood, one must ask if Noah or his children baptized anyone? If the answer is no, then how was baptism re-introduced into the population so that they would know about the symbolic lesson of the flood. As for what lesson would be learned by God just eliminating the animals and people without the use of a flood, I guess it would be don't piss off God.



Intestingly, in doing some research on the Torah and the Torah Scrolls. I found that early on in the creation of Torah Scrolls, some scribes were writing portions of the scroll from memory instead of the slower copying directly from the source. When some of the scrolls were found to contain errors they quickly moved to stop that practice and mandate copying from the source as the only way to produce a Torah Scroll. If the practice had been done during the earliest times it would have been possible for the exchange of letters to have gone unnoticed. One letter in all the bible might have been missed. Yes I know it is conjecture but as I stated above, there is no record of Gopher wood in the ancient world anywhere but the bible, however Kopher/Kophar wood is wood covered with pitch and that is exactly what is called for in the construction of the ark.



To be honest I had not thought of diversity but in searching for information on Woodmorappe's book I found several snippets. One in particular seems appropriate here. On page 188 of his book he says "Furthermore, a single pair of founders most definitely have the same genetic diversity as fifty founders, and without any miraculous or unusual procedures." That would seem to indicate that you would need far less than the 16,000 generally accepted by creation scientists . As for space, 16,000 animals in 95,000 sq feet is less than 6 sq feet per animal, however, the food and water required to feed that number of animals would require a hefty ammount of space and would further reduce the avilable space per animal. The loadout for food and water I estimated as 6 months for 1000 animals would be 8 years for 16000 animals. Would the food have remained edible after that much time before the flood even began. God gave Noah 7 days to gather the animals before the flood began and with 16,000 animals, they would have had to gather, get aboard the ark and put in place, each pair in just over 1 minutes time



Yes perhaps there are errors in the timeline however there are structures older even then the pyramids. For example the temples of malta were built hundreds of years before the pyramids and even if the 3600 bc estimate is off by a few hundred years they still would have been built before the flood and should show signs of the flood but don't. As for timelines, the estimates I have seen for the time of the flood range from 2200 bc - 2900 bc depending on which creation source you use. Since there is no universally accepted date for the flood, the structures such as the pyramids could have been built before the flood and not after.



How do ecological zones explain the absence of mass graveyards of humans all dating to the time of the flood? I'm also not sure what the stone-age has to do with this discussion.



You assume the disparity of salt in water today was different before the flood, but I have seen nothing in the bible (perhaps I have missed it) that indicates that the salinty of the oceans had changed because of the flood. As I stated most if not all fresh water fish. There was no indication that it had to be all fresh water fish so no ignorance on my part. Perhaps a lack of full understanding on your part of what I had written.



Unless creation science shows radically different effects and climatological conditions at high altitudes then there is again no ignoarance on my part. I have indicated those conditions and their effects on Noah, his family and the animals. Perhaps there would have been a great upheval, however, the bible states that the waters covered all the high mountains and it couldn't do that unless the mountains existed pre-flood. I am aware of the 6 inch increase per year of the heigh of mt ararat, however if you take that backwards to the date I used as the estimated date of the flood, Mt Ararat would still have been over 14000 feet high (as opposed to the over 17000 feet of today) and the high altitude conditions would still have prevailed. Also if there were an ice age, which we know does not come and go in a mere hundred years or so, there would have been writings about it by the decendants of Noah and his family and there are none that I know of.



An interesting point about the unicorn. Now expand that to the 16,000 animals you say were on the ark. 16,000 animals released, the non-carnivores first and then the carnivores. With hundreds or thousands of carnivores then hundreds to thousands of non-carnivores would have died quickly from the meat eaters claws and teeth while hundreds more would have been trampled to death in the mad rush to get away from the carnivores. That alone would have put the 16000 animal requirement for diversity in jeopardy.

Volcano-ravaged areas rebound quickly because there are windblown seeds that arrive. However, with all plantlife destroyed by the flood and most surviving seeds buried under left behind silt, recovery would be much slower.



The question was not if they could do it in less than 300 years but would they (Noah's decendants) in a 300 year period, abandon belief in God, and not only accept the old ways in Egypt of multiple gods but have the exact same gods as there were before the flood? Also if all other humans had died who would have told the decendants of Noah about the beliefs and practices in Egypt pre-flood?



The biblical account was written about 1425 BC and the EOG about 3025 BC, Since the EOG could not have been written before the event it is the oldest account of the flood. Now perhaps the biblical account was not a plagarization of the EOG, however, the EOG, written closer to the actual event would have been the more accurate. It is well known that accounts handed down from father to son over hundreds of years suffer from loss of some information and subtle alterations of others. You can see this in action by getting 10 people. Take person 1 into a separate room and show him/her a written phrase. Then have person 2 go into the room and have person 1 repeat verbally the phrase. Person 1 leaves the room and person 3 enters and person 2 repeats the phrase. This is continued until person 10 has heard the phrase from person 9 then have person 10 write down what he/she heard and compare that with the original and note the difference in the two. Now expand that a few hundred years with the information not passed on till later in each persons life.

1 - I never questioned how the bible text was maintained just whether a single letter could have been unwittingly altered (Humans are fallible after all and can make mistakes)

1 - I never compared conditions of the earth pre and post flood but pondered the conditions at the location of the ark landing site (based on a landing at the summit of mt Ararat) after the flood waters had receded and normal climatological conditions resumed. I never made any assumption of salt content difference of the oceans pre and post flood. The mixing of salt and fresh water would have been disasterous to many fresh water fish. The assumption of salt content difference was made by you.

2 - Secular chronologies biased against the bible? I would accept that if you can provide evidence that they were in fact created for the sole purpose of refuting the bible instead of being created based on the most current information available at the time.

3 - Again the human repopulation was not an attempt to say that they couldn't have repopulated at the rate believed but was more on would they have abandoned their faith.

4 - The size of the ark I stated was the creationist accepted size so I don't see the problem you have there.

5 - Again the size and dimensions are those generally accepted by creation scientists

6 - Ship worthiness of other boats/ships has to my mind never been discussed, and as trade ships and fishing ships existed for other nations at the supposed time of the flood, it is not implausible to believe that there may have been some at sea when the flood occurred.

Sorry but my conclusions are not the result of poor scholarship based on a myriad of inaccurate assuptions, but the application of logic and common sense to the biblical account. On the other hand several of your refutations were based on the lack of full understanding of what I was trying to say and I apologize for not writing more clearly.



Well you have minced your EOG and bible epics here. In the EOG the flood doesn't last a year but only 14 days so your comment about surviving on a cube shaped boat for a year is void. Also I would like to see something that shows a cube shaped boat would spin endlessly as you claim. I ask because I personally saw a square house floating on flood waters a couple years ago and though the current was swift the house did not spin. I use science as you do when the need arises but have never claimed to love science as you state. The fact that the EOG is the oldest account still makes it the original despite your belief otherwise. The biblical account is most likely a verbally handed down accounting of the event with changes cropping in as is natural for verbally passed tales.

Edit: Forum program does not allow more than 10 quote boxes per post. It is not an option we can change so we also have to abide by this. To make the quote boxes work I changed 3 boxes to code boxes.
ikester7579

I haven't been here since my reply and saw no reply to my reply (so to speak) I now see why. For some reason my quoting your comments separately Fred didn't work and it is hard to see what is what. Since there doesn't seem to be a button or link to edit my post I will repost it putting Fred's comments in bold and my replies in regular text:



At this time I have no access to Woodmorappe's book as the local libraries do not carry it and my credit card was stolen and I am awaiting the issuance of a new one. I found a few snippets of the book on the internet but nothing more. Once I again have a credit card I will purchase and read the book



In no way was I infiring that it was 600 years after Noah was born. I was using the biblical text to show that the month/day indications in the bible as they refer to the account of the flood were not literal as in 2/17 meaning February 17 but were relative to the month and day Noah was born. Ex: Noah born June 1 would make 2/17 July 17.



With everyone but Noah and his family eliminated by the flood, one must ask if Noah or his children baptized anyone? If the answer is no, then how was baptism re-introduced into the population so that they would know about the symbolic lesson of the flood. As for what lesson would be learned by God just eliminating the animals and people without the use of a flood, I guess it would be don't piss off God.



Interestingly, in doing some research on the Torah and the Torah Scrolls. I found that early on in the creation of Torah Scrolls, some scribes were writing portions of the scroll from memory instead of the slower copying directly from the source. When some of the scrolls were found to contain errors they quickly moved to stop that practice and mandate copying from the source as the only way to produce a Torah Scroll. If the practice had been done during the earliest times it would have been possible for the exchange of letters to have gone unnoticed. One letter in all the bible might have been missed. Yes I know it is conjecture but as I stated above, there is no record of Gopher wood in the ancient world anywhere but the bible, however Kopher/Kophar wood is wood covered with pitch and that is exactly what is called for in the construction of the ark.



To be honest I had not thought of diversity but in searching for information on Woodmorappe's book I found several snippets. One in particular seems appropriate here. On page 188 of his book he says "Furthermore, a single pair of founders most definitely have the same genetic diversity as fifty founders, and without any miraculous or unusual procedures." That would seem to indicate that you would need far less than the 16,000 generally accepted by creation scientists . As for space, 16,000 animals in 95,000 sq feet is less than 6 sq feet per animal, however, the food and water required to feed that number of animals would require a hefty ammount of space and would further reduce the avilable space per animal. The loadout for food and water I estimated as 6 months for 1000 animals would be 8 years for 16000 animals. Would the food have remained edible after that much time before the flood even began. God gave Noah 7 days to gather the animals before the flood began and with 16,000 animals, they would have had to gather, get aboard the ark and put in place, each pair in just over 1 minutes time



Yes perhaps there are errors in the time line however there are structures older even then the pyramids. For example the temples of Malta were built hundreds of years before the pyramids and even if the 3600 bc estimate is off by a few hundred years they still would have been built before the flood and should show signs of the flood but don't. As for time lines, the estimates I have seen for the time of the flood range from 2200 bc - 2900 bc depending on which creation source you use. Since there is no universally accepted date for the flood, the structures such as the pyramids could have been built before the flood and not after.



1) How do ecological zones explain the absence of mass graveyards of humans all dating to the time of the flood? I'm also not sure what the stone-age has to do with this discussion.


2) You assume the disparity of salt in water today was different before the flood, but I have seen nothing in the bible (perhaps I have missed it) that indicates that the salinity of the oceans had changed because of the flood. As I stated most if not all fresh water fish. There was no indication that it had to be all fresh water fish so no ignorance on my part. Perhaps a lack of full understanding on your part of what I had written.



Unless creation science shows radically different effects and climatological conditions at high altitudes then there is again no ignoarance on my part. I have indicated those conditions and their effects on Noah, his family and the animals. Perhaps there would have been a great upheval, however, the bible states that the waters covered all the high mountains and it couldn't do that unless the mountains existed pre-flood. I am aware of the 6 inch increase per year of the heigh of mt ararat, however if you take that backwards to the date I used as the estimated date of the flood, Mt Ararat would still have been over 14000 feet high (as opposed to the over 17000 feet of today) and the high altitude conditions would still have prevailed. Also if there were an ice age, which we know does not come and go in a mere hundred years or so, there would have been writings about it by the descendants of Noah and his family and there are none that I know of.



An interesting point about the unicorn. Now expand that to the 16,000 animals you say were on the ark. 16,000 animals released, the non-carnivores first and then the carnivores. With hundreds or thousands of carnivores then hundreds to thousands of non-carnivores would have died quickly from the meat eaters claws and teeth while hundreds more would have been trampled to death in the mad rush to get away from the carnivores. That alone would have put the 16000 animal requirement for diversity in jeopardy.

Volcano-ravaged areas rebound quickly because there are windblown seeds that arrive. However, with all plant life destroyed by the flood and most surviving seeds buried under left behind silt, recovery would be much slower.



The question was not if they could do it in less than 300 years but would they (Noah's descendants) in a 300 year period, abandon belief in God, and not only accept the old ways in Egypt of multiple gods but have the exact same gods as there were before the flood? Also if all other humans had died who would have told the descendants of Noah about the beliefs and practices in Egypt pre-flood?



The biblical account was written about 1425 BC and the EOG about 3025 BC, Since the EOG could not have been written before the event it is the oldest account of the flood. Now perhaps the biblical account was not a plagarization of the EOG, however, the EOG, written closer to the actual event would have been the more accurate. It is well known that accounts handed down from father to son over hundreds of years suffer from loss of some information and subtle alterations of others. You can see this in action by getting 10 people. Take person 1 into a separate room and show him/her a written phrase. Then have person 2 go into the room and have person 1 repeat verbally the phrase. Person 1 leaves the room and person 3 enters and person 2 repeats the phrase. This is continued until person 10 has heard the phrase from person 9 then have person 10 write down what he/she heard and compare that with the original and note the difference in the two. Now expand that a few hundred years with the information not passed on till later in each persons life.

1 - I never questioned how the bible text was maintained just whether a single letter could have been unwittingly altered (Humans are fallible after all and can make mistakes)

1 - I never compared conditions of the earth pre and post flood but pondered the conditions at the location of the ark landing site (based on a landing at the summit of mt Ararat) after the flood waters had receded and normal climatological conditions resumed. I never made any assumption of salt content difference of the oceans pre and post flood. The mixing of salt and fresh water would have been disastrous to many fresh water fish. The assumption of salt content difference was made by you.

2 - Secular chronologies biased against the bible? I would accept that if you can provide evidence that they were in fact created for the sole purpose of refuting the bible instead of being created based on the most current information available at the time.

3 - Again the human re-population was not an attempt to say that they couldn't have repopulated at the rate believed but was more on would they have abandoned their faith.

4 - The size of the ark I stated was the creationist accepted size so I don't see the problem you have there.

5 - Again the size and dimensions are those generally accepted by creation scientists

6 - Ship worthiness of other boats/ships has to my mind never been discussed, and as trade ships and fishing ships existed for other nations at the supposed time of the flood, it is not implausible to believe that there may have been some at sea when the flood occurred.

Sorry but my conclusions are not the result of poor scholarship based on a myriad of inaccurate assumptions, but the application of logic and common sense to the biblical account. On the other hand several of your refutations were based on the lack of full understanding of what I was trying to say and I apologize for not writing more clearly.



Well you have minced your EOG and bible epics here. In the EOG the flood doesn't last a year but only 14 days so your comment about surviving on a cube shaped boat for a year is void. Also I would like to see something that shows a cube shaped boat would spin endlessly as you claim. I ask because I personally saw a square house floating on flood waters a couple years ago and though the current was swift the house did not spin. I use science as you do when the need arises but have never claimed to love science as you state. The fact that the EOG is the oldest account still makes it the original despite your belief otherwise. The biblical account is most likely a verbally handed down accounting of the event with changes cropping in as is natural for verbally passed tales.

I wouldn't recommend wasting too much effort building an anti-flood case on bad Egyptology.

Found me a book review & it looks like accurate Egyptology's becoming available.

Actually this has been in the pipeline for a while I think. It's been at least 3 or 4 years since I started hearing about some of this. "Egyptology" has never been firm. It's way old news how they screwed up the chronologies by failing/refusing to recognize the split kingdom deal. Anyhow, I'm optimistic the truth is beginning to be extracted.


How long did it take the Israelites to abandon their faith after leaving Egypt?

Didn't you say earlier something about Noah being inexperienced/incompetent regarding seamanship & shipbuilding? How did you come to know about these other sailors & find out such detailed information about Noah? Is there some unpublished work you're keeping secret?

Yes you did:
Please share the source. I'd like to see what other discoveries await therein.

I split your replies into two (A & to make it easier to see what my replies refer to

A Since the case was built for the most part on the text within the bible itself, trying to allude that my entire case is built on "Bad Egyptology" as you put it, is at the least misleading on your part. You also have not addressed the other monuments like the temples of Malta that should have shown signs of the flood but don't.

Yes many of the Israelites did abandon their faith, but in the case of Noah's descendants, they not only had to give up their faith, but travel to Egypt, a land devoid of people, learn to read hieroglyphs, read about the society then copy that society exactly right down to worshiping the same exact gods as were done in Egypt before the flood.

B I love your sarcasm about ships and shipbuilding. Now perhaps I am wrong and I'm sure you'll show me, but I believe the bible refers to Noah as a farmer and not a shipbuilder. Now a farmer doesn't generally carry within their brains the knowledge of shipbuilding since it is not essential to the task of growing crops and raising cattle/sheep. Perhaps you can point to the passage in the bible that tells us about Noah's shipbuilding skills.

As far as other sailor's and ships that might exist at the same time, I would recommend history books and encyclopedias in your local library. It can be very useful. Since there is no indication in the bible that God told the whole world about the flood, making an assumption that a fishing boat might be at sea when the flood began is no stretch of the imagination and since those that fish for a living tend to be able to weather bad storms that too can be a possibility.

Noah didn't need to know how to build an ark. He merely followed instructions. The above verses are a summary, no doubt, and it can be assumed that God gave Noah much more than these few simple instructions.

If you wonder how long it takes a people to abandon faith all you have to do is track the decline of this nation from one founded on faith to one following the most hedonistic pagan practices ever experienced by man in the history of humanity. It can happen very quickly.

Personally, I'm skeptical that there were ships, fishermen, etc., before the flood. As man was not given flesh to eat until after the flood, what would they be doing with the fish they caught?

Dave

dont worry dave, man ate meat after the fall of man in the garden of eden. Dinosaurs killing each other are set in stone by the Flood, alls we have to do is look at the left overs from the flood. Global fossilization= Global Flood, really am i the ONLY one who goes out and hunts for fossils???? And when i mean dinsoaurs, marine life, mammals, and insects were all buried rapidly, funny thing is thats the ONLY way to make a fossil.
The most OBVIOUS clue to the Flood is looking at the Fossils, everyone needs to realize the majority of fossils that are found PERIOD, were alive seconds before burial!!!!! Just take a look at the fossils found in abundance that are frozen in time, the oviraptor fossilized protecting its eggs, the protoceratops fossilized while fighting a Velociraptor!!!!!! Are ALL of you BLIND???? Hundreds more fossils AROUND THE WORLD are found fossilized like this. YOU CANNOT DENY THIS. This is the ULTIMATE proof against an old earth and the ultimate proof besides Noahs Ark itself.
Also, we must get past the illusion of the KT boundary, go outside, dig a hole, and see if you can touch it with your hands.
No where will you find a layer of ancsestors ANYWHERE perfectly aligned like evolutionist have pictured in the textbooks, NEVER will this be found.
Remember evolutionist dont date dinosaurs because of cretaceous limestone they were found in, they date them simply because they truly believe one dinsoaur is older than another on pure speculation. But oh boy, will they ever deny this, because they have the scientific power to date ROCKS.....LOL.
Anyways, i know absolutely that there is more proof for Noahs Flood than there ever will be for evolution. Why, well stop crying and pick up a shovel, and grab some evidence, and just take a LOOK at the fossils your holding. Flood evidence is the Fossil you hold in the palm of YOUR hand.

I think that there's school of thoughts saying that once upon a time the whole world was a full piece of land. If YEC is temporarily put aside (i mean forget about the time factor for awhile), how possible is that the flood caused america, australia and etc. departed from the main continent?

Well, at one time as we can see from space, it looks as if the continents are one big puzzle that can be pieced back together to make one complete continent. Thing is why would a planet randomly be a one continent planet??? Me thinks God had it made as one continent for a purpose.

Yes i believe this could be provided as more evidence for a Global Flood, simply put, it seems easier Flooding one continent.

As simple as this might sound, i put my faith in God, before i even think of all the evidence, because its faith that counts. Its faith in God that keeps me motivated. Its faith in God that makes me see the world as i see it. This is why i have faith that the Flood happened, but my faith doesnt stop me from looking for evidence, it makes me look for more evidence. When i see the world with eyes of faith, things happen.

About the flood and the Grand Canyon. I believe the flood carved out about 25% of the canyon, and the rest was carved out by water run off.

Think about it. A whole planet flood would raise the water table to the point that even the water would be draining off for several hundred years. And until the water table became normal again, every time it rained it would flood.

Here in Florida our water table is near the surface of the ground because we are close to sea level elavation. So when it rains a lot, the water table rises to where it actually flows out of the ground. When hurricane Fay past through here, it rained for several days. My street goes down like a slope. All the yards on the street were draining for a whole week after the rains stopped. At the lower end of the street, all this drain off looked like a small river flow. And it took two weeks for all the yards to quit draining.

But because the water table is higher than normal due to the rains. A normal storm comes along and causes another flood like condition because the ground cannot take on any more water.

I believe the flood made the water table rise, and it took several hundreds years for it to become normal again. And every rain after that flood really flooded stuff because the ground could no longer take on water. So we would get high water in any river that formed which would increase erosion. And the further down canyon eroded, the more water came into it from the water table making the erosion even worse.

And because floods often bring abrasive material, this added to the erosion problem as well as the fast flowing water.

This is why the top of the Canyon look kinda chopped off. The flood waters did this. And the rest look like it was eroded by a river because several hundred years of water table run off water will do that.

One more thing. Anytime the ground and surrounding area is constantly wet. This cause moisture to evaporate into the current atmosphere which would make storms more frequent. Which is the same problem we are having here because of Hurricane Fay. Extra water and moisture on the ground causes rain here almost everyday. 6 out of seven days it rains here.

For the Canyon, couple that with the moisture from the flood. You'd probably get non-stop rain storms almost every day.

Example: Imagine so much moisture on the ground that when the sun hits it, there is so much evaporation it's like over 90% of the earth is water. That will cause major rain storms and more flooding. But on a more local bases.



As far as fish goes. The oceans were created with fresh water. And because it did not rain before the flood, salt was not being added to the oceans on any scale that made a difference until after the flood. Some fish were caught still in the oceans, while others ended up in lakes and ponds. The salt being added to the ocean water made the fish adapt to it. Some may have died, but most did not. And fresh water fish ended up in our ponds lakes and streams.

The proof of this is the same types of fish being found in both types of water. Like fresh and salt water bass. Fresh and salt water alligators. Fresh and salt water sharks. Yes, they found some fresh water sharks once when there was a drought. They were albino as well. But they are so rare, you don't have to worry about them while swimming.

As far as plants go. Seeds go dormant in 40 or below temps. Waters at the bottom of the flood were cold just like water currently at the bottom of the oceans. So the seeds were ready to sprout as soon as it warmed up with the sun.

Seeds also often float. So the flood would have transported seeds all over the place.

Pondering...

I wonder if the moon could continue to pull upon the earth while it was covered with water? If not, the earth axis would settle not so slanted which would explain the ice age once that water drained off (Because the seasons would not be such a change). Then as the moon could pull on the earth, when the water drained, the tilt would slowly get corrected.

High water tables would explain the glaciers that formed during that ice age.

There is no indication in the Bible that any further instructions were given to Noah. You assume further instructions were given. I assume that if such instructions, theyr would have been some mention of it in the Bible. Without further corroboration, neither of our assumptions can be considered valid.

This nation wasn't founded on one religion or one faith (history shows us that), however Noah and his children were of one faith and they were devout in their religion.

They have found the remains of a boat, perhaps used for fishing, in China and preliminary evidence shows it to be 7500 years old or used about 4000 bc. Well before the Biblical flood.

The flaw in your theory is your proof itself, the fossils. If all men and animals, dinosaurs included, were killed in the same year, their remains would have to be fairly close together, with animal, man, dinosaur, insects and fish all commingling in what would be a single bed of fossils, but such is not the case. Also if there were no ships before Noah, how did the animals and people get to the other continents to become fossils in the flood? By the logic here, all the fossils should be located only in the middle east.

Actually, the middle east has some of the richest oil deposits in the world, so yes, that oil deposit is one big jumble of pre existing carbon based lifeforms.

You must understand, that at the time of Noah, all the land masses were connected, and there is evidence for this, provided for by both creationist and evolutionist alike. You see when you look at the continents, they can be connected back together.

The evidence is in the fossils, you see no geological time column has ever been found. Fossils are never found in complete and perfect order as you see in the textbooks.

In the event of a global flood,we would expect to see global evidence.The only such thing is the Great Uncomformity,at the top of the precambrian.That would make all fossils above that post-flood.

After thinking about it for a long time i figured out that the grand canyon is evidence of a flood in arizona,But at the bottom of the canyon you can see the Great Uncomformity that can be found in arizona or in china,anywhere in the world you find the cambrian and precambrian layers.

There is nothing that can cause global erosion except something that is global,like a global flood.Nothing in geolgy today is being formed at such a massive and global distribtion (The New Catastrophist,D. Ager,1993).

Here is a link that actually shows some of the massive boulders in the tapeats sandstone in the cambrian.
www.grisda.org/origins/05039.htm - 26k -

Enjoy.

My point Exactly, no other layers in sight. They call it cambrian because of the fossils they find in it. Now, if there were dinosaur bones in layers above these, then we could say for sure that this is cambrian, but unfortunately there are not.

The geological time column, it just gets up and runs everytime you look for it. Except for drawn textbook diagrams that is.

Yes the continents seem to have been one in the past but for them to drift to their current positions in a couple thousand years would have required greater speed than currently exists in continental drift then a sudden decrease and there is no indication in the Bible or other writings that such a thing actually happened.

Oil deposits, unfortunately do not support the flood since there are oil deposits from as little as a couple hundred feet down to nearly 38,000 feet and indicate a vast time difference between the two. If the oil deposits were the result of the flood they would be at the same level and are not.

Actually they would be at different levels, simply because all around the world you have things called above and below sea level. All ground levels using human sight appear to be level, but are not.

The deepest man has ever dug, is 40,226 feet, which is 7.62 miles, the highest mountain on earth is only about 30,000 feet high, so unfortunately for evolutionist this poses no problem for the flood.

Just think about it, a valley 40,226 feet below the highest mountain would be a piece of cake for a Global Flood to fill, and you must also realize these layers are sediments, and sediments had to be laid by moving water.

Also when you think about it, why then was the world one continent at one time? A logical creationist view would be that God made it that way, for a simpler way to get around the entire earth, but evolutionist would have to believe that it just formed one land mass by coincidence.

I also believe it's completely logical for the land masses to move in a relatively short time, as from observation we have observed whole Islands become formed, and whole Islands destroyed in about a days time.

You must also understand that when soil is exposed to water for more than 2 weeks time, it becomes extremely loose, and 7 mile deep ocean water on top of a once dry land mass could have serious effects on the total land mass itself. Also the Bible indicates water from the deep, which could have induced underwater volcanoes to help seperate the land masses and help produce oil out of all the compressed dead animals covered by all of the Flood sediment.

Scott,

You should look at the evidence for exponencial decline in the geologic column.If you put the first erruption at yellowstone on a graph and end with Mt. St. Helens that errupted in 1981,you can see clear exponencial decline by an order of magnitude of a thousand or more.In fact,if you go even further back to the permian era you find 2 mile deep lava flows in siberia.

In my opinion,it's irrefutable proof that tectonic activity must have been thousands of times faster than present rates.

Wow, that's pretty amazing, I'm going to look more into this.

quote;Wow, that's pretty amazing, I'm going to look more into this.

I would recommend seeing "Geologic Evidences"by steve austin in the video on demand section at answers in genesis.He also gives the seizmic charts for earthquakes kept since the 1920's,guess what? Earthquakes have also declined in just that short period of time.

Enjoy.

I am quite fascinated by the kind of data that you consider to be "irrufutable proof"? I downloaded the video and Austin simply shows the relative sizes of four volcanic flows. There is no graph of the average volcanic flow over time around the world. It does not mention the Siberian flows or the Deccan traps in India (each were several million times larger than Mt. St Helens).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_Traps

He also does not mention that small flows are easier to detect if they are recent. Older one's become weathered eroded. So even if there was some evidence that flows were once larger one would need to correct by this factor.

He does mention two of the recent mega-eruptions of the Yellowstone Caldera. The Huckleberry Ridge eruption with 2500 cubic kilometers would have been hugely distructive. Austin suggests it would have been "lethal over half a continent" at least. Indeed, if you dig down into the sediment of much of the midwest, one can see the delicate ash layers of the different eruptions. Some in Kansas are many feet thick.



There are even ash layers in places like Indiana that can be traced to volcanoes that were once in Virginia (360 million years ago).
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/LivingWith/Volca...st_indiana.html

Many of the best preserved fossils come from ashfalls like this. The ash both kills the animals and provides excellent preservation. Many of our best fossils from China come from ancient ashfalls. Ten million years ago, one ash fall in Nebraska killed now extinct rhinos, camals and three toed horses.

http://www-museum.unl.edu/research/vertpaleo/ashfall.html

If we dig underneath just about anywhere in the Midwest we will find that the sedimentary layers alternate with these ashfalls. We will also find vast salt layers showing evidence of ancient dry salt seas, as well as vast coral reefs that surround these ancient seas. However, these coral reefs and salt layers are NOT near the bottom but are dispersed throughout geologic column. We do NOT see evidence of a single flood. What we see is evidence of dry periods, interspersed with ancient seas, periods where trees and plants and animals lived and died. And all of these different layers are interspersed with layers of volcanic ash.

And you are quite correct that the Permian period had one of the largest eruptions (250 million years ago, or 1/10th of the way back to the beginning of the planet). Enough lava was produced in this eruption to cover the entire earth to a depth of 20 feet. This eruption was around 3 cubic kilometers or about 1000 times larger than the largest eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera and about about 3 million times larger than Mt. St. Helens.

So if the Hucklenberry Ridge eruption was distructive to half a continent, what would happen during the Siberian flows that were 1000 times larger? Scientists currently estimate that during these Siberian flows over 90% of species vanished. More than 99.99% of individuals must have died during this time since the species that vanished at this time disappeared everywhere across the planet and never were found in higher layers again. We have evidence of acid rains and large changes to the heights of the oceans A few million years after this huge extinction, we start to see the first dinosaurs appear in the fossil record.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0009...4/fulltext.html

At the time the dinosaurs disappeared (65 million years ago), we also see another huge eruption - the Deccan Traps in India. This one was about 1.5 million times larger than the Mt. St. Helens (but a flood basalt).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_Traps


From all this, I see no evidence of a consistent change in the size of eruptions. I see no evidence of a worldwide flood in any sedimentary layers. I do see evidence of local floods alternating with volcanic eruptions, dry periods with great salt seas (many producing salt layers) and layers with vast coral reefs hundreds of miles long. I see animals and footprints buried in ash. I see extinctions and I see the rise of new species after these extinctions.

James

Amazing, over a period of days a flood should create layers, and each layer should contain some salt in each layer, so I have no idea what your getting at, but as far as the geologic time column is concerned, there is no hands on evidence for it even existing. So yes we do see evidence of a single flood, because all the sedimental layers would not have been layed over night. Also as fossil evidence shows, everything is in disorder, not happily aligned like the textbooks show.

So James, have you found a T Rex then an allosaur in layers directly below it, without having to go a few miles down the road just to find the allosaur skeleton, then claim the allosaur as older?

Hi Scott,
I think it it worth looking at those salt layers and coral reefs more closely. 2000 feet below me, one finds the remains of an ancient salt lake that extends over New York, Ohio, and Michigan. The salt layer is about 100 feet thick directly below me (we have a big salt mine nearby), but becomes about 400 feet thick in the Michigan basin. This layer is mined to produce most of the road salt used in the Northeast. The material is the same sort of evaporate that we find in the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

Why not take a good look at this link and see what questions you have. It has a number of excellent figures explaining the salt locations and mining.

http://www.saltinstitute.org/mich-1.html

The ancient lake is surrounded by huge barrier reef system full of corals much like the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. The reef is 200 meters thick in places and up to a kilometer wide. It is mostly buried but it is a common source for natural gas, so a lot of gas drillers search it out.

If you go up 1000 feet above this ancient salt sea, one can find another reef system that extends hundreds of miles and dated to around 350 million years. This reef system is exposed at a number of places like the "Falls of the Ohio"
http://www.fallsoftheohio.org/education/patch-reef.html


You can do the same in Kansas. If you want to find 'solid' evidence of an ancient sea in Kansas - and not a flood. Go to the middle of Kansas and go 650 feet down. You will find the remants of a 275 million year old (Permian) sea that evaporated. They left vast salt layers as noted in the link below.
http://www.kancoll.org/articles/progress/salt.htm

"The salt deposit underlying Hutchinson and that section of Kansas is one of the largest in the world. Covering several thousand square miles and reaching a thickness in some places of 400 feet, it is the remains of an old salt sea and contains enough salt to supply the United States for the next 250,000 years at the present rate of consumption."

This one also has a reef system.

Remember that none of these coral reefs are near the bottom of the geologic column. No complex animals are found at the bottom (in the many many layers of rock dated from 600 million to 3.5 billion years old). Only single cell algae are found in these lower layers.

So what is your theory of how these coral reefs and salt layers were laid down?

As far as finding fossils in successive layers, I have discussed this elsewhere. But would be happy to discuss this again if you feel what I wrote does not answer your questions.
http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/forum/in...188&#entry17188

Everywhere I have looked, the textbook model fits the fossils I find quite accurately. I would love to find a fossil out of order and gain a bit of fame. I certainly hope you notify your local museum and call the Creation Museum in Kentucky if you have good evidence that the textbooks are wrong anywhere on the planet. Remember to photograph your find.