TOPICAL NOTES 4-5: NOAH'S FLOOD, EARTH'S GLOBAL TROPICAL CLIMATE

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4. God used the global Flood to repopulate the earth with less violent life forms He chose.  

This Topical Note on Noah’s Flood describes the ark, the geology behind the Flood, the origin of Earth’s plate tectonics, and the Ice Age that followed. Then these objections that are often raised about the reality of Noah’s global Flood are answered:

• “It was impossible for primitive ‘cave men’ to build the huge

ark.”

• "The animals on the ark were too large and numerous for eight people to stow and care for.”

• “Noah's Flood was only a local flood.”

• “No geological evidence exists for a global Flood.”

• “No historical record of Noah’s Flood exists outside of the scriptures.”

• “Wasn't the biblical Flood account derived from older Mesopotamian flood stories?”

See the Conclusions section below for a summary of the evidence presented in this Topical note that Noah was a historical person and the Flood was a historical event.

The ancient Mesopotamian flood and creation epics that have commonality with the Genesis accounts are covered next. Each epic is summarized and its parallels to the Genesis Flood and creation accounts are examined historically and with archaeology to explain their similarities and differences with the biblical accounts. When compared with the Mesopotamian epics, the biblical creation and Flood accounts are defendably correct. Then, the Sumerian King List of pre-Flood and early post-Flood rulers of Shinar in Mesopotamia is covered. This is followed by The World’s oldest writing, Mesopotamian “proto-cuneiform”, that was use before 3000BCE and appears to have bridged the pre-Flood and early post-Flood civilizations. Its role in the information trail of the ancient Genesis accounts into modern bibles is explained. Finally, Worldwide human migration that filled the earth with people is continued from Topical note 3, and the resulting Worldwide flood and creation accounts are evaluated.

Noah's flood 

Why did God send this global Flood that killed nearly all human and animal life on the earth?

Noah’s Flood was mentioned in many books of the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament) besides Genesis 6-9 that contains the account. Jesus Christ also referred to the Flood in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and Peter referred to it in his epistle of 2 Peter. However, today most people dismiss the biblical Flood and Noah’s ark as religious myths.

The Flood was God’s judgment on the violent behavior of the early humans and animals. Convincing evidence from science and ancient history is presented in this topical note that clearly supports it was real.  When God destroyed the world by the Flood (Genesis 6-8) 2200 years after its creation He was long-suffering before doing this. God used the global Flood to repopulate the whole earth with less violent kinds of land animals, birds, and humans of his choosing. Genesis 6:8 records Noah found favor with God because then only he believed God. New Testament Hebrews 11:7 and 2 Peter 2:5 state Noah preached to condemn his generation, so he warned them of God’s impending judgment but they didn’t believe it.

Noah's ark

Genesis chapters 6-7 record God’s instructions for Noah to build an ark (Hebrew “thbth”) that would preserve his family and the creatures He chose to repopulate the earth.

What is an ark?  An ark is a floating container or ”box”.  It is unlike a boat that is designed for travelling on water which also has a streamlined hull with propulsion and steering systems.  Noah's ark had no sails, oars, or rudder like ancient boats.  It was built as a very long and wide floating  three story solid wooden house with a protective roof on top and a single 1.5ft opening (for light and ventilation) under it all around. God specified its dimensions as 450ft long, 75ft wide, and 45ft high (if 1 cubit = 1.5ft). 

The hull shape wasn’t recorded but because it was an ark, not a boat, a rectangular hull was intended.  However, popular renderings commonly portray Noah’s Ark as a boat with a streamlined hull (internet pictures). It is pictured correctly as an ark having a rectangular hull with a flat bottom in{40}{55}.  The rectangular shape and flat bottom simplified its construction for Noah’s family.  They obviously had construction skills, but Genesis 9:20 records Noah was a farmer not a ship builder. The ark was covered inside and out with a “sheltering coat” for waterproofing according to Genesis 6:14 (written Hebrew kphr, Scripture4All Hebrew interlinear bible). Note Hebrew kphr was not the same as chmr used in post-Flood references to an oil-based substance in Genesis 11:3, 14:10, and Exodus 2:3 that was translated as “tar”, “asphalt”, “pitch”, or “slime”.  Earth's oil was produced geologically during Noah’s Flood(57). 

God commanded Noah to build his ark with gopher wood (Genesis 6:14), however a few bibles translated the wood as cypress[NIV], cedar, or teak wood.  What was gopher wood?  Three Hebrew letters were used to form the word translated "gopher" (or gofer) in English bibles, but vowels are omitted in written Hebrew so it has an uncertain pronunciation and meaning today (internet).  God specified this sulfur-containing wood in Genesis 6:14 (Scripture4All Hebrew interlinear bible, and {54}), so presumably it was very strong and resistant to rotting or absorbing water during a year of immersion in the sea.  The Septuagint bible translated Hebrew “gphr” as “square timber” or flat edge-cut logs that would fit snugly together instead of naming the type of wood.  After God shut them in (Genesis 6:17) perhaps by using a gust of wind from the approaching storm to slam the door, all humans and land creatures outside of the sheltering ark were doomed to drown in the Flood.

Geology of the Flood summarized

Evidently the Flood was initiated by a brief increase of the earth’s internal temperature that fractured its lithosphere (outer rocky crust) and led to a rapid chain of geologic and meteorological events and lasting dramatic climate changes for the earth.   Creation scientists show evidence the heat was caused by a limited episode of accelerated radioactive decay within the earth{3,4}. The earth's lithosphere is thicker and more robust under continents than the oceans. However, the heating was centered under the supercontinent where the humans and land animals lived (Genesis 1:9-10) that God intended to destroy. This brief heat pulse fractured the lithosphere across the single continent{44}. Then hot magma from below surfaced in the fissures, widening them and separated the original single land mass into smaller ones on movable rocky plates that rode on top of the hot semi-fluid mantle below. This geologic process is called “plate tectonics”{27}.  The ocean flowed between the forming smaller continents as their moving plates carried them apart, a process called “continental drift”. During the Flood, Earth’s initial crustal separation speed at the fracture zones was several m/sec{45} (or a few hundred km/day!) according to creation scientists. But this speed gradually slowed as the earth’s interior cooled, and today’s average speed is only about 10cm/year.  Because the fissures where magma upwells that pushes the sea floor apart are currently nearly all along mid-ocean mountain ridges this earth movement is called “sea floor spreading”. Aside from sea floor spreading, there is some modern continental spreading in the East African rift valley.

So the brief overheating of the earth’s interior at the start of Noah’s Flood began Earth’s processes of plate tectonics and continental drift that split Pangea into earth’s smaller, widely separated modern continents that today occupy the entire globe. This all happened several thousand years ago. However, conventional scientists who deny Noah’s Flood believe the breakup of the most recent supercontinent (Pangea) was millions of years ago and they aren’t sure how Earth’s plate tectonics began{27}.

The hot magma warmed the oceans by 10 deg C or more according to creation scientists, and increased evaporation.  Volcanic vents that formed globally spewed ash far up into the sky and provided condensation nuclei for atmospheric water vapor that formed dense clouds and a continuous global torrential rain.  The break-up of the continental crustal rock also liberated terrestrial pressurized subterranean water (Genesis 7:11) which spewed out over the land and contributed to Earth’s flooding. Creation scientists believe that heating of the thin ocean crust elevated it to increase global sea level that contributed to flooding the land{56}.  This worldwide violent flooding went unchecked for months, so all of the land became submerged under water deep enough to float the ark. The pre-Flood mountains were likely not more than a few thousand feet high (since there was no mountain building plate tectonics before the Flood). The highest Flood waters topped them by just 20 feet (Genesis 7:20) that would have been measured with weighted rope, but deep enough to drown all land life.  Today's high mountain ranges that are almost 30,000 feet high were produced by collisions of the moving crustal plates with their high initial speed during, and after the Flood. (See Earth’s modern plate tectonics, below).

After five months (150 days, Genesis 7:24) evidently the volcanism ceased when the earth’s interior cooled from the brief overheating. The clouds thinned, the rain stopped, and pressurized subterranean water stopped flowing out of the fractured continental crust (Genesis 8:2).  Plate tectonics would have also generally uplifted the land and global sea level dropped as the ocean crust cooled.  This increased water run off from the land into the ocean that lightened and raised the continents more while weighing down the ocean floor and deepening it.  Then a continuous wind blew that increased water evaporation from the warmed ocean into the sky, and the water over the earth gradually became shallower (Genesis 8:1).  Water would have also seeped back under the new continents to refill the voids that supplies today’s underground aquifers.  The ark rested on the still submerged mountains of Ararat in the 7th month after the Flood began, and after 10 months the mountain tops became visible above the water.  Noah’s account numbered the exact days of key events during the year long Flood (Genesis 7:13,17,24; 8:3-5,10-11,12,13,14). Together with other evidence this indicates that Noah kept a written daily log. His eldest son Shem inherited it, his descendants translated and kept it, and Moses later drew from it for his Flood account in Genesis.  Evidence suggests it was originally written in pictographic “proto-cuneiform” that is known to have been in use before 3000BCE (Topical note 4, Worlds’ oldest writing). It may have been written in clay or wood media. Daily events during this flood were completely missing from the Mesopotamian epic flood stories described below that originated from oral stories long after the Flood. 

Why did human lifetimes shorten after the Flood?

The brief overheating of the earth’s interior that fractured its lithosphere and began the Flood also would have disrupted its magnetic field that is believed to be generated within its liquid core. Instantaneous field intensity fluctuations and reversals are well documented geologically. Some creation scientists see evidence for unusual activity of the earth’s magnetic field that included a flux reversal during the Flood year. Biblical human longevity suggests it has taken 1500 years (3200BCE to 1400BCE) for the average magnetic fielAfter five months (150 days, Genesis 7:24) evidently the volcanism ceased when the earth’s interior cooled from the brief overheating. The clouds thinned, the rain stopped, and pressurized subterranean water stopped flowing out of the fractured continental crust (Genesis 8:2).  Plate tectonics would have also generally uplifted the land and global sea level dropped as the ocean crust cooled.  This increased water run off from the land into the ocean that lightened and raised the continents more while weighing down the ocean floor and deepening it.  Then a continuous wind blew that increased water evaporation from the warmed ocean into the sky, and the water over the earth gradually became shallower (Genesis 8:1).  Water would have also seeped back under the new continents to refill the voids that supplies today’s underground aquifers.  The ark rested on the still submerged mountains of Ararat in the 7th month after the Flood began, and after 10 months the mountain tops became visible above the water.  Noah’s account numbered the exact days of key events during the year long Flood (Genesis 7:13,17,24; 8:3-5,10-11,12,13,14). Together with other evidence this indicates that Noah kept a written daily log. His eldest son Shem inherited it, his descendants translated and kept it, and Moses later drew from it for his Flood account in Genesis.  Evidence suggests it was originally written in pictographic “proto-cuneiform” that is known to have been in use before 3000BCE (Topical note 4, Worlds’ oldest writing). It may have been written in clay or wood media. Daily events during this flood were completely missing from the Mesopotamian epic flood stories described below that originated from oral stories long after the Flood.d to stabilize to its modern intensity. Genesis 11 documents how human longevity asymptotically decreased after the Flood c3200BCE and gradually reached today’s 120 year limit by the time of Moses c1400BCE. It's interesting the breakpoint year for C-14 historical dating accuracy is also 1400BCE (Topical note 7, radiocarbon dating). This suggests that backward in time before this year there were significantly less and less cosmic particles entering earth’s atmosphere (to produce C-14), due to earth's stronger ancient magnetic field then. So it is tempting to conclude an asymptotic decrease in the field’s intensity and its shielding effect against cosmic particles after the Flood resulted in increased genomic damage and at least played a role in shorter human lifetimes. 

Noah after the Flood

Noah sent out birds to search for dry land and a dove returned with a fresh olive leaf in its beak.  Then he knew the water had receded from some land and vegetation had started to recover from the Flood. After one year the Noah saw the surface of the land was dry (Genesis 8:13). Evidently the land was replanted by spores in the air, and seeds from vegetation that floated in the ocean. Soon it would provide food for the humans and animals in the ark, however dense forests would require hundreds of years to regrow.  After nearly another two months the land was completely dry and enough vegetation had grown to nourish them.  Then God commanded Noah and his family to leave the ark with the animals, after 13 months and 27 days in all (Genesis 8:14).

Noah offered sacrifices of some of the clean animals apparently to show his gratitude for God’s mercy that saved them through the Flood. Genesis 9:11 records God promised never again to destroy all living creatures by a flood. See Genesis 2 commentary about God’s rainbow covenant. The earth’s seasons would continue as long as the earth existed (Genesis 8:20-22). God charged humans to multiply and fill the earth (Genesis 9:1,7).

God removed His curse on the ground (Genesis 8:21): The uniform tropical climate and lush environment where thorny weeds sprang up and grew to maturity every night (Genesis 3:17-18) that choked out crops and was a curse to farmers had ended. The breakup of the supercontinent by plate tectonics (that was introduced above in Geology of the Flood summarized, and is continued below in Earth’s plate tectonics) formed worldwide high snow-capped mountainous regions. Atmospheric aerosols from vulcanism during the Flood dimmed the sunlight for many years that began a 1000 year ice age after the Flood (described below). The worldwide post-Flood climate was cooler and rainier with more pronounced seasonal changes. So weed growth from His curse on the ground (Genesis 3:17-18) was moderated, which was a blessing to farmers living in temperate climate zones. Removing His curse on the ground certainly came as a gift from God to Noah and his family for their effort to build the huge ark and save the animals from the Flood, since Genesis 9:20 recorded he was a farmer.

God promised never again to send a another flood to destroy the whole Earth. His sign of this covenant for His own remembrance to all living creatures would be the appearance of His rainbow in the clouds (Genesis 9:11-16). Rainbows are covered in the Genesis 2:5-7 commentary.

God specifically allowed Noah’s descendants (who had remained vegetarians) to eat meat in the more rigorous climate after the Flood. (Genesis 9:2-4):They could consume animal flesh, but not their blood with life in it that would eventually be used for offerings to God. God would judge human murderers and animals that killed a human (Genesis 9:5-6). Evidently, animals that have a consciousness have a judgment even though they weren’t created in God’s image like humans.

Noah’s vineyard (Genesis 9:18-27): A curious turn of events gave God the opportunity to prophesy through Noah about his sons’ descendants who would repopulate the whole earth. These important few scripture verses explain why Canaan’s descendants later lost their land in the Middle East that God gave to Shem's descendants the Hebrews and helped them to conquer it (Genesis 17:5-8) and why almost all of the Mesopotamian and worldwide cultural flood and creation stories have few similarities with Noah’s Flood and the creation accounts recorded in Genesis. So this story is explained in some detail.

This brief account about Noah’s vineyard recorded his sons in order of their ages. Shem was Noah’s eldest and favored son (Genesis 9:26-27), Ham was his middle son and the father of Canaan, and Japheth was his youngest son. Genesis 10:1 repeats this age order. (See footnote in the 1984 NIV printed bible about Genesis 10:21.} At this time Canaan was Noah’s youngest male descendant who he counted as a son. This story about a personal offense to Noah has confused bible commentators because neither the offense nor the culprit was specifically named. Noah originated this account so he would have omitted explicit details. No doubt he documented it to predict the eventual demise of Canaan’s descendants, and Moses later recorded it in Genesis as he led the Hebrews to conquer their land and execute this prophecy. The following scenario makes sense of all the clues.

Evidently people planted vineyards to make wine even before the Flood. Noah was a farmer (v20) and after the Flood he made some wine and got drunk inside his tent and fell asleep. Apparently Noah’s sons came to speak with their father. Verses 20-25 recorded Ham entered his father’s tent when his brothers waited outside (v22). He found Noah drunk from his wine while he slept unclothed. Ham informed his brothers and he apparently left. However, his brothers Shem and Japheth went in and covered their father with a garment without gazing upon his nakedness or waking him. Then they left and presumably informed him later. Ham apparently gossiped to his family and Canaan heard about it. Canaan went into Noah's tent and m------d his grandfather while he slept. Whether Shem and Japheth caught Canaan in the act or Canaan boasted about what he did as perpetrators sometimes do, others gossiped so his deed got back to Noah. After Noah woke and found out what his “youngest son” had done to him while he lay sleeping in his tent he was greatly upset. Noah’s actual youngest son evidently was Japheth not Ham, so Ham would not have been the culprit as some commentators have written. God predicted Canaan's descendants would later lose their land because of this offense which would make no sense if his father Ham was the guilty party.

Noah presumably noticed Canaan was very licentious even before this incident which prompted Noah to have no patience with him. Noah knew Ham neglected to correct Canaan’s sensual behavior, and Ham should have properly helped his brothers cover him out of respect for their father. But instead of helping his brothers cover his father Ham gossiped about it to his family so Canaan found out as Noah surely realized. (See "gossip" in the Genesis 3 commentary, under Life Lessons.) Noah promptly cursed Canaan for his sensual misdeed. The wording detail seems to include his descendants as well. Then he pronounced his patriarchal blessing only on his sons Shem and Japheth who did what was proper. Noah left out Ham because he disregarded his responsibility to his father, and Ham was also partly responsible for Canaan’s action.

This story provides life lessons for today about the trouble caused by those who enjoy gossiping about the shortcomings of others that entices the hearers to act on it and about drinking too much alcohol, even seemingly in private!      

Noah's curse on Canaan didn't “cause” his descendants to lose their land, but it would be God’s future reaction to their predicted free-will licentious behavior. Very reasonably, Noah would have distanced himself from Ham’s family after this incident. Ham probably felt his father was overreacting to something minor, so he disregarded his father Noah’s prophecy against his son Canaan and the loss of his own blessing (and his inheritance). So, this incident would have caused a mutual split between Ham and his descendants from the rest of Noah’s family.

This family breakup caused the Mesopotamian epic and worldwide cultural creation and Flood stories that were later originated by Ham’s descendants to be very different from Moses’ records in Genesis. 

This was because Ham’s descendants in Mesopotamia didn’t have access to the written pre-Flood genealogies, creation accounts, and Noah’s Flood account from the ark that Shem inherited (see “Most ancient writing” section below).  So they relied only on dim memories of their oral accounts from before the confusion of language (Genesis 11:6-7){43} to later write their own creation and flood stories that appear in the Mesopotamian epics. These muddled creation and Flood stories by Ham’s descendants contained few accurate details of the creation and Noah’s Flood in the Genesis accounts, and they became mixed with their later pagan religious lore.  These confused stories were also taken wherever they later migrated worldwide from Shinar.  As is explained below, some of Japheth’s descendants kept creation and Flood records that agreed well with those Moses later recorded in Genesis, evidently because they copied or memorized Noah’s records from the Ark before they migrated from Shinar.    

Bible history showed Canaanite licentiousness was correctly predicted (Genesis 19:24-25, 34:1) and being slaves of Shem’s descendants was later fulfilled when the Hebrews took their land and used some of them as laborers (Joshua 9:22-26). (More details about loss of the Canaanites’ land are explained in Authorship of the Book of Genesis, Why the Hebrews acquired the Land of Canaan.)

Earth’s modern Plate tectonics:

Summarizing Flood geology from above, a brief sudden rise of Earth’s interior heat started the Flood. It fractured the earth's crust into small rocky plates that separated the original single supercontinent into smaller land masses. Magma from below surfaced and pushed the plates apart. This crustal movement{41} allowed the ocean to flow into the widening continental fractures and separated them to produce today’s smaller continents as shown in diagram{44}. Where the edges of rocky plates collided, one became subducted below into the earth’s hot interior to melt. This burst of interior heat also produced Noah’s global Flood by causing worldwide volcanism that brought intense global rain, and earth movements that breached and unleashed the earth’s terrestrial subterranean water sources which further contributed to Earth’s flooding.

Near the end of the Flood year the earth’s interior began to cool and volcanism and sea floor spreading slowed. Today, nearly all of Earth’s crustal movement originates under water at the fracture zones where the supercontinent split{46}. (Only the East African Rift Valley shows crustal spreading above ground.) Newly solidified magna from sporadic sea floor volcanic eruptions still fills in the very slowly widening original fractures from Earth’s circulating semi-molten mantle below. Recently measured sea floor spreading averages only about 10cm/yr worldwide, although localized regions near deep sea-subduction zones can be 10 times faster. Italian mapmaker Americus Vespucius about 1500CE was credited as the first to notice how the continental outlines of western Europe and Africa fit those of the newly discovered eastern Americas. However, he was unaware of plate tectonics that produces continental drift by sea floor spreading.

Earth is the only planet known to have plate tectonics{27}. Scientists took over 50 years after it was first proposed in 1912 to agree that Earth’s rocky crust consists of separate movable plates that ride on its hot, viscous mantle. This was partly because uniformitarian geology is so entrenched{27}. A growing number of conventional geologists recognize that “punctuated catastrophism”, instead of purely “uniformatarianism”, originated Earth’s geologic features. Mars and Mercury both have a single continuous lithosphere that sets over their hot interiors{27). Venus has a fractured rocky crust that is believed to be caused by its high global surface temperature of over 400C, however its crustal sections don’t move independently as plates do on Earth{28}. Fossilized stromatolites show that life on Earth predated plate tectonics{27} and the Flood, which is consistent with the Flood account in Genesis 6-9. Conventional scientists who deny the Flood claim there were many supercontinents and continental breakups during Earth’s 4.5 billion year history. However, these scientists don’t agree on what started Earth’s plate tectonics{27}.

The dramatic slow down of sea floor spreading and continental drift after the Flood should appear in the sea floor rock record and indicate Earth’s plate movement was only a single episode, contrary to the view of conventional geologists. Unfortunately, determining ancient sea floor spreading rates to verify this rate reduction is problematical because the spreading rate and the physical quantities used to measure it (eg., the earth’s magnetic field) both vary. And the difference between conventional geology’s uniformitarian “deep-time” radiometric dates that vary for their published data (internet sources) and “young-earth” interpretations by creation scientists currently creates hopeless confusion in the meaning of the spreading rate data.

Mountain building after the Flood:

The leading edges of these rapidly moving crustal plates deformed the edges of the smaller new continents that they collided with and pushed them up into Earth’s highest mountains: Ararat, the Alps, Andes, and Himalayas{42}. The mountains of Ararat that were low coastline along the ancient Tethys Sea in Pangea before the Flood were greatly raised by plate tectonics during and after the Flood (Genesis 2{3,4}). Globally, these leading plate edges then became subducted under the continents they collided with to dissolve in Earth’s hot mantle below{42}. So the world’s high mountain ranges were “catastrophically” built very quickly during and shortly after the Flood year, not over many millions of years.

The Ice Age

Magna that surfaced in the fissures between the broken rocky plates worldwide warmed the oceans by 10 deg C or more during the Flood year. The warmer ocean increased evaporation that produced more precipitation. The huge amount of ash from worldwide volcanism that was suddenly ejected into the sky during the Flood year evidently took hundreds of years to clear. Atmospheric aerosols reduced worldwide solar energy absorption that cooled the earth’s surface. This caused more snowfall and repeated bitterly cold winters at high latitudes. And the resulting cooler summers allowed the winter ice there to accumulate more each year so thick glaciers formed{52}, and they moved further toward the equator. This cycle repeated for centuries. It caused a single ice age after the Flood that lasted nearly 1000 years according to creation scientists. (This was from c3100BCE-2100BCE according to Josephus’ historical chronology.) The maximum extent of the ice sheets occurred about 500 years after the Flood (Topical note 6{5a}) when they covered perhaps 30% of the earth’s surface. Today, long after the skies cleared of volcanic aerosols from the Flood and the oceans cooled, slowly receding glaciers are still present at high latitudes that cover about 10% of the earth.

Conventional scientists deny Noah’ Flood and claim the earth had many ice ages during its 4.5 billion year history, and that the most recent one ended about 10,000 years ago. They believe the Earth’s documented volcanic ash deposits in glacial ice cores that marked periods of worldwide sunlight reduction occurred only sparsely during Earth’s long history, so they didn’t cause a prolonged cooling sufficient to start an ice age (Topical note 7, Glacial ice core dating). The newer astronomical (Milankovitch) ice age theory described in the noteworthy 1976 paper, “Pacemaker of the Ice Ages”{53} claims that ice ages coincided with earth’s orbital motion variations that reduced sunlight on the earth. However a later necessary revision of dating for their data measurements ruined this claim but it was largely unnoticed by the conventional scientific community{52a}. The creation science description of Earth’s ice age as caused by Noah's Flood (above) provides a reasonable cause for it, but conventional science lacks a convincing explanation for what causes an ice age.

Answering critics’ objections to Noah’s Ark and the global Flood:

“It was impossible for primitive ‘cave men’ to build the huge ark”:

Despite the robust appearance of the Homo erectus population in the fossil record that was described previously in Topical note 3, Fossil humans, they clearly were intelligent, capable construction workers as well as metal smiths. Scripture records Adam and Eve's son, Cain, built the first city (Genesis 4:17) and Genesis 4:22 states that his later descendants forged all kinds of tools from bronze and iron before the Flood so they had the technology to make metal saws to cut logs and fabricate metal braces and fasteners for the ark's timbers. The Flood destroyed their metal making technology but humans redeveloped it later after the Flood. The post-Flood Bronze Age in the Middle East began c3000BCE soon after the Flood{2}, and the post-Flood Iron Age began later c1200BCE.

Jewish historian Josephus records that Noah’s effort to urge his generation to mend their ways was ignored, and he feared they would murder him so he fled the country with his family.  This suggests Noah’s family built the ark in a remote location near a forest with little or no outside help.  Josephus also recorded the pre-Flood era lasted about 2200 years{2}, and since Noah lived 600 years until the Flood (Genesis 7:11) the violent humans had hundreds of years to repent. The difficult passage in New Testament 1 Peter 3:19 suggests that many antediluvians were not able to directly hear the godly preaching of Noah, and Seth, Enoch, and others before him (Genesis 5:3-29).  Broadcast media didn’t exist then and second-hand transmission of their messages would have promoted only prejudiced views by the pre-Flood population that accused them of being “religious fanatics”.  Humans haven’t changed since then, only their advanced technologies.    

God would not have charged Noah to build something he had no ability to make.  Although Noah evidently was a farmer (Genesis 9:20) he and his family must have been skilled construction workers to make the 450 foot long (using the 1-1/2 foot biblical cubit), triple-deck ark, complete with food storage space and living spaces for the animals and humans.  Although Genesis 6:3 is sometimes cited to mean it took them 120 years to build the ark, this verse has been viewed to mean God would limit human lifetimes to 120 years after the Flood as recorded by the historian Josephus{13}.  This is the case in modern times.    Yet the ark could have taken decades of hard work to build.  The ark would have lifted from pre-Flood Mesopotamia outside the population center of the five cities (Sumerian King list section below), then drifted north hundreds of miles during the year-long Flood before landing in the mountains of Ararat. 

“Animals on the ark were too large and numerous for eight people to stow and care for”:

Before the Flood, pairs of each "kind" of animal (Genesis 1 vv9-13{2}) migrated to the ark by God's direction (Genesis 6:19-20). God would have chosen them to be a manageable number to care for. One pair of unclean animal “kinds” (see Genesis 1, 3rd day commentary, and Topical note 6), and seven pairs of the less numerous clean animal and bird kinds were taken in. (Distinctions between clean and unclean creatures were later described by Moses in Leviticus 11, but God would have explained this to Noah). Each pair had the entire fixed gene pool to reproduce all the varieties of their kind. Space-saving docile baby animals old enough to eat vegetation would have represented the adult forms in the ark. Besides being smaller than adults, they would have longer breeding lives after the Flood.  Although the NIV bible uses "rooms" for living spaces the written Hebrew word "qnim" means "nests" which suggests most creatures rested in large undivided bay areas.  Only pairs of larger animals, those with exclusive carnivorous habits, and venomous creatures- which might pose a danger to others needed to be penned.  Some creation scientists suggest that labor-saving methods were devised to collect and remove animal waste.  Because all creatures had a vegetarian ancestry (Genesis 1:30) those that recently developed a carnivorous habit would have survived by eating suitable vegetation that could be stored while they were inactive. All the various foods needed by the humans and animals were stored in the ark (Genesis 6:21) for the Flood year. Even resting baby carnivores in the dim lighting would have been well behaved when sufficiently fed a veggie diet.

Once inside, the animals would have become inactive in their new dimly lit confined space for the one year duration. Like at a huge “petting zoo”, these docile baby animals would have been manageable by their kind, vegetarian human hosts since they did not have the distrust of humans that wild animals do today. Noah’s family remained vegetarian through the Flood, since God specifically allowed them to eat meat afterwards (Genesis 9:2-3).

Genesis 6:7 hints that God was dissatisfied with violent animal behavior too so He selected the less violent kinds of animals and birds to migrate to the ark and repopulate the world. The monstrous carnivores (including giant theropod dinosaurs such as Gorgosarus and Tyrannosaurus) that lived in far-away western Pangea (Topical note 3) could not have migrated to the ark. And they were unknown in the post-Flood world among the numerous large reptiles that were described by famous old-time explorers and historians Alexander-the-Great, Marco Polo, Herodotus, and Josephus{5}. Various herbivorous sauropods appear in petroglyphs and ancient European church artwork, and a stegosaurus is clearly represented in a Cambodian temple sculpture{5}. These artworks confirm their presence in the ark about 5000 years ago contrary to alleged macro-evolution that claims these dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago.

“Noah's Flood was only a local flood”:

Religious liberals claim Noah’s Flood was a local one, not global as Genesis states. Modernist bible critics’ further claim that the biblical Flood account was “borrowed” from earlier Mesopotamian epics that actually described a local flood. This further claim is covered in lengthy detail below.

By the end of the 2200-year pre-Flood era some humans migrated widely over the original single continent, as seen when the Pangea interactive map is compared with a modern map of fossil Homo erectus discovery sites (compare maps in Topical note 3{5 and 11}). Humans were not all living in one area near Eden so God would not have used a local flood to eliminate them. Also, the whole continent must have been under water during the Flood to cover the mountains that were said to be submerged (Genesis 7:19). Notice that God could have had Noah's family lead the animals to another region to escape a local flood faster and more easily than to have them build the huge ark! After this Flood Noah's family and the animals were the only land creatures said to have survived and God charged them to fill the empty world (Genesis 9:1), which indicates that all other flesh perished and implied the Flood was global (Genesis 6:5-17) and covered all of Pangea. Noah's family remained vegetarian through the Flood, but God permitted them to include hearty meat in their diets afterwards (Genesis 9:3-4) perhaps to live in Earth's colder post-Flood climate during the upcoming ice age.

“No geological evidence exists for a global Flood”:

Fossils in sedimentary rock are commonly found in “graveyards” of many individuals rather than isolated individuals, which is consistent with a catastrophe sweeping them all away.  Marine fossils including the especially numerous fossil clams (mollusks) are found worldwide today even high up on continental mountains.  The fossil record shows a mixing of land animals- dinosaurs and mammals, with marine fossils on all continents that is evidence a global flood inundated the land{56}. So all of the pre-Flood Pangea super-continent was under the ocean during much of the Flood year.  The simplest explanation for marine fossils is the global nature of this Flood (Genesis 7:20) rather than periodic ocean intrusions over different land areas during millions of years.   

Fossils of ancient (pre-Flood) animals seem to be stratified in rock layers according to organismal mobility. The less mobile (so-called “primitive” by conventional biologists) invertebrates and small fish appearing in the bottom rock layers. The higher Flood rock layers contain the more mobile (so-called ”advanced”) large land vertebrate reptiles and mammals that could migrate to higher ground as the flood waters rose. This is especially noticeable on what was the highest ground during the Flood: What some creation scientists call the “dinosaur peninsula” in western Pangea was apparently a ridge of high ground that ran for hundreds of miles from what is now modern central Canada southward into the western U.S., and another high area in Pangea was what is now modern equatorial Africa. Here fossils show large assemblages of land animals mixed with marine fossils that suggests the encroaching ocean{56}. 

The geologic era that animals lived in also determines which rock layers fossils appear. The most recently deposited (top) sedimentary rock layers on earth contain fossil animals from the ice age and more recently that descended from those saved in Noah’s Ark and have adapted to post-Flood climates (Topical note 6, Micro-evolution within species). Familiar fossils of these extinct animals are mounted museum skeletons of Siberian mammoths, mastodons, saber tooth cats, and dire wolves.

The Grand Canyon rock strata are claimed to be up to 300 million years old by conventional geologists, however, the Colorado River follows a very meandering path through them (that is not suited to cut through consolidated rock) and the sequence of rock layers is bent radically in places without cracking, such as at the Kaibab Upwarp{6,7}.  This evidence indicates today's visible rock strata must have been soft unconsolidated mud when the river cut the canyon rather quickly and the bending occurred, and it later consolidated into the hardened rock seen today.  These Grand canyon rock strata were once soft, stacked mud layers that continued seamlessly throughout western North America and show evidence they were part of a global flood{6}. The great ages conventional geologists assigned to these rock strata assume the river cut through consolidated rock at today’s slow rate, according to uniformitarian geology. 

“No historical record of Noah’s Flood exists outside of the scriptures”:

Today most people dismiss the biblical Flood and Noah’s ark as religious myths. However outside of the scriptures, Josephus the first century Jewish historian, states the Armenians still showed remains of the ark to visitors then. He cites two other historians (Berosus the Chaldean and Nicolas of Damascus) wrote that the remains of the ark were long preserved in Ararat, and people carried off bits of pitch from it as souvenirs. Josephus gives a date for the year-long Flood as 992 years before Abraham the ancestor of the Hebrew nation{2}, or c3192BCE. Today, Armenian locals claim the ark still rests there high in the snowy mountains, but aside from the frigid weather Turkish officials make it legally difficult to travel in this militarily restricted border zone to search for it. Also, uninterrupted historical genealogies of leaders of the early European nations back to their historical ancestors, Japheth and Noah were recently published ({21}Topical note 3).

“Wasn't the biblical Flood account ‘borrowed’ from older Mesopotamian flood stories?”

The translated flood stories recorded in Mesopotamian epics are referenced and paraphrased below.  They show the importance of the Flood to Mesopotamian culture.  Bible critics claim the ancient Mesopotamian flood stories are proof that the more recent biblical Flood account recorded in Genesis c1450BCE was inspired by an ancient one-week local flood in Mesopotamia (see chart in {25}). It does appear the epic flood stories combine details from a one-week ancient local Mesopotamian flood with a few details from a Mesopotamian oral tradition of Noah’s Flood.  However, evidence presented below shows the Flood details in Moses’ Genesis account originated with Noah’s written Flood account, so there was no information “borrowing”.  Critics say an oral tradition of this ancient local flood story was spread widely for a thousand years along international trade routes and explains why many world cultures internalized it{9}. This alleged scenario will be discussed below in the section below, Why do the Mesopotamian flood stories describe a one-week flood?  The well-known ancient Mesopotamian epics that contain flood stories will be explored next and their relevance to the Genesis Flood record examined.  Worldwide cultural creation and flood stories will be covered at the end of this Topical note.

1. The Eridu Genesis tablet{9}{22} that was written in Sumerian cuneiform is the oldest Mesopotamian epic that contains their flood story. It is a religious epic with cited dates in the literature{9}{22} that range from 1600BCE up to 2300BCE, but it is believed to have an older oral tradition. Two-thirds of the original tablet is missing so breaks in it cause troublesome lengthy interruptions in the story. The epic recorded names of Mesopotamian rulers who lived before the Flood that interrupted rulership of the land. It named the five “antediluvian” cities of pre-Flood Sumer on the Sumerian King list. This epic stated the Gods were tired of the humans they created making too much noise that kept them awake at night so they decided to destroy all of mankind with a terrible flood. However a pre-Flood ruler and priest, Ziusudra, whose name meant “the far distant”, was warned by his god to build a huge boat to escape the destructive flood with some humans and animals on board. The storm raged and tossed the boat for 7 days and nights. After the violent flood ended he let out the animals and sacrificed sheep and oxen to the gods. For his hard work Ziusudra was rewarded with eternal life in the land of Dilmun (possibly the island of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf). This flood story includes some features of the biblical Flood account, but it had a duration of 7 days and 7 nights.

2. The Atrahasis (or Atra-Hasis) epic{23}{24} is written on three tablets in Akkadian cuneiform and is better preserved than the Eridu Genesis tablet. This Mesopotamian religious epic includes a similar flood story. It dates from c1600BCE, but it had a prior oral tradition {19,21,23,24}. The Atrahasis tablets are used by cuneiform scholars to fill in missing parts of the incomplete Eridu Genesis tablet since the stories are similar{9}. In it, the character Atrahasis, whose name meant “exceedingly wise”, was the builder of the boat who saved some humans and the best of all kinds of animals from the flood. The boat is described as having a roof with upper and lower decks and a door, and it was covered with bitumen. At the end of the violent flood the boat rested on mountains. After Atrahasis sent out a raven that didn’t return he opened the door and let out the animals and people from inside. These details are similar to Noah’s Flood, however the flood duration was recorded as 7 days.

3. The Berosus epic is a Greek version of Atrahasis that the Babylonian priest Berosus translated for King Antiochus I in 280BCE. He might have done some editing too, since there are a few differences between the Greek and Babylonian versions.

4. The Gilgamesh epics were the world’s first popular literature {11}, unlike the two earlier purely religious epics. This high-adventure series similar to modern “Indiana Jones” had many episodes with many versions. Ancient stories discovered on clay tablets in Mesopotamia had many versions because they existed first as oral traditions and different speakers told slightly different stories until they were eventually recorded (Authorship of the Hebrew Law, The Book of Job). Gilgamesh was a historical person. He was the fifth ruler of Uruk (Erech) on the Sumerian King list and his exciting and prominent life evidently made him a popular subject for storytellers. He was deified after his death and the inhabitants of Uruk diverted the Euphrates River to bury him under the river bed{14}. Recently a structure in the old Euphrates river bed in ancient Uruk was discovered that could have been his tomb{29}. The oldest epic version that included the episode with the flood story on tablets 9-11 of 12 tablets{11} was written in Babylonian cuneiform and was dated 1600 BC. In the Gilgamesh flood story the boat builder was named “Utnapishtim” that meant “possessed eternal life”.

Similarities with Noah’s Flood include that a god gave precise dimensions to build the boat, it was sealed with pitch and bitumen, his family and the animals of the field went in, and the flood destroyed all of humanity because they were sinful (not too noisy, as in the earlier epics). After the boat lodged on a mountain and Utnapishtim released a dove and a raven he opened the door and released the inhabitants of the ark. The epic records the gods gave Utnapishtim and his wife eternal life for their reward. Much later, hero Gilgamesh searched for and met Utnapishtim hoping to obtain eternal life for himself, but he was disappointed that it could not be transferred to him. The details of the boat in the flood story match the biblical account however the story records a flood duration of only 6 days and 7 nights. It appears the flood story in the popular Gilgamesh epic borrowed some similar content from the Eridu Genesis and Atrahasis religious writings.

5. The Nippur Flood tablet{30}is a fragment of an unbaked clay tablet that shows parts of 14 lines of Akkadian cuneiform and dates to 2100BCE. Only 1/3 of the original tablet survives today. The cuneiform characters in parts of the lines are missing so the translator filled in the English meaning of what he believed was missing clearly in brackets that he inserted in his translation. A Wikipedia post refers this kind of bracketed translation interpolation as “informed deduction”{31} although the author of {30} is clearly critical of its use. However, a reader will notice the original translation of only the raw readable cuneiform shows recognizable details of the Flood account in Genesis 6:13-20 without any conflicts with it or mention of Mesopotamian deities{30}. This is quite unlike the later Eridu Genesis, Atrahasis and Berosus, and Gilgamesh epic flood stories that are packed with Mesopotamian religious lore. The tablet was discovered in the ruins of the Nippur temple library in Shinar that contained thousands of tablet fragments. The library was destroyed by the Elamites in their attack of the city that has a historical date of 2100BC. (The referenced article asserted the date was more recent than this, but did not give a reason{29}.) This partially preserved independent flood account from before 2100BCE hundreds of years before the Genesis account was written describes a global flood event that doesn’t conflict with Noah’s account.

Comparison of the Mesopotamian flood stories

The flood stories included in the Eridu Genesis, Atrahasis, and Gilgamesh epics describe an ancient flood that killed all mankind and the animals except for those on a big boat, and contain some other details that match the Genesis Flood. The Eridu genesis and Atrahasis epics are similar and the Gilgamesh epic borrowed from these two earlier epics. However, all of these flood stories (except in the partial Nippur Flood tablet) are interwoven tightly with Mesopotamian gods and Goddesses and they all record a week-long flood. Also the differences in the epic flood stories show that various versions of them circulated in Mesopotamia as early as 2500BCE. This suggests imperfect memory of their oral traditions after the confusion of spoken language{43} c3100BCE.

The later Babylonian Gilgamesh epic (c1600BC) recorded that the flood “reached up to heaven and the earth was made a desolation”, which made the flood seem truly global. It also told “The evildoer and the whole of mankind that had turned to sin, their corpses floated like driftwood”. (Noah’s account doesn’t mention sightings of dead humans floating in the water.) It recorded that the flood was caused by mankind’s sinfulness, not because they made excessive noise that disturbed the gods as the earlier two epics describe. This cause of the flood was the same as given in Genesis although the Gilgamesh epic dated later than the actual Flood, but before Genesis was recorded c1450BCE.

Why do none of the epic flood stories name Noah (meaning “comfort”) as the boat builder?

Ziusudra whose name meant “the far distant” was a king-priest before the Flood in the Eridu Genesis epic who could not have been Noah, who was a farmer according to Genesis 9:20). The boat builders in the other two epics were Atrahasis, that meant “exceedingly wise” and Upnapishtim that meant “possessed eternal life”. These three characters were used as the boat builder in these epics instead, but none of their names meant “comfort” which was the meaning of Noah’s name. These Mesopotamian epics with their flood stories were created by Ham’s descendants from Nimrod’s family who populated Mesopotamia after the Flood. The confusion of spoken language (Genesis 11:6-7) that happened perhaps 100 years after the Flood disrupted everyone’s ability to describe the old creation and Flood details in words. The earliest epic, Eridu Genesis, was written by the Sumerians hundreds of years after the Flood and the confusion of language. So Mesopotamians had to develop a new spoken language to try to express their remembered oral traditions of earlier events! Ham’s descendants apparently separated from Noah’s extended family after Noah cursed Canaan and Ham lost his inheritance, as was explained in the section, Noah’s vineyard above. Josephus recorded that Noah and his wife remained isolated near Ararat after his son’s families migrated to Shinar({1}Topical note 3). After a few generations of bad feelings about Noah, Ham’s descendants apparently forgot him, then the confusion of language erased him from memory. These other characters were used in stories of their vague memory of the Flood that fit their pagan religion.

Do the Mesopotamian flood stories describe a global or local flood?

Apparently both. All mankind and the animals were targeted for destruction by the gods in the Eridu Genesis (Sumerian) and Atrahasis (Akkadian) epics. However the epic flood stories all describe the effects of the flood only on pre-Flood Mesopotamia. The flood stories were written as if all humanity (the inhabited world) was concentrated there. They stated the flood swept over “the country”, and the darkness was total and “no man could see his brother”. Corpses floated like fat white sheep and were pushed by the flood into heaps like piles of dead dragon flies in the “river marsh”. During the one-week flood the boat apparently floated over what was the densely populated area between the pre-Flood Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The epics stated the flood was global (against “all mankind”) and they mentioned a few details from it (about the boat, the animals, and sending out birds at the end) which could have been remembered by Ham’s early descendants from their ancient tradition of the global Flood. However, many of the details during the flood recorded in the epics (above) apparently were obtained from the severe local flood of c2900BCE between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that the survivors passed on and were still remembered when the epics were written. The epic flood stories seem to contain a blend of details about Noah’s global Flood mixed with details that occurred during a severe ancient local flood (below).

Why do the Mesopotamian flood stories (and nearly all worldwide cultural flood stories) describe a one-week flood, while the Genesis Flood lasted a year?

Archaeology shows a historical record of several extensive local floods between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in ancient Mesopotamia from c2500BCE back to 2900BCE{25}. Some modern archaeologists believe the flood in the Sumerian Eridu Genesis epic corresponded to the local flood of c2900BCE{39}, that occurred a few hundred years after Noah’s Flood (c3200BCE according to Josephus). So this historical ancient local flood reasonably supplied some of the details of the Sumerian flood story that also appeared in the later Atrahasis and Gilgamesh epics. This included its one-week duration. A one-week flood was also described in nearly all worldwide cultural flood stories that were taken wherever people migrated globally away from Mesopotamia (Genesis 11:7-8). Since the human dispersion occurred after the confusion of spoken languages c3100BCE, a local flood before this may have inspired the epic flood stories, or the local flood of c2900BCE had an erroneous late radiometric date. Apparently all of these corrupted flood stories by Ham’s descendants combined details from an ancient local flood in Mesopotamia with Noah’s global Flood that submerged the whole world. Only some of Japheth’s descendants who apparently copied Noah’s written Flood account described the year-long Flood as it was recorded later by Moses in Genesis (below).

What about scientific evidence? A flood that covered all of Earth’s land and then dissipated in just one week was too short in duration to be scientifically supportable. This is further evidence the one-week flood in the epics and world cultural stories was fabricated. The biblical one-year flood as described earlier in Topical note 4-Noah’s Flood, was shown to be consistent with the geological, meteorological, and fossil records.

Comparison of Mesopotamian creation stories

The creation stories in the Eridu Genesis and Atrahasis epics that were both written before 1700BCE began with Mesopotamian gods digging river beds in the existing earth. They don’t include creation events of the universe prior to creating the animals and the humans. The Sumerian Eridu Genesis creation story that records a god made humans and animals from the earth’s clay could have been passed on from oral stories of the pre-Flood account in Genesis 2 handed down by Ham’s descendants living in Mesopotamia.

The Babylonian Enuma Elish creation story ({4}{5}Genesis 1, Origin and authorship) was written on seven clay tablets that were discovered in ruins of the Assyrian royal library. King Ashurbanipal had this copy made 600-700BCE from an older set. Various copies of this story exist from Babylon and Assyria, and the original composition is believed to be older than 1600BCE. So the Enuma Elish originated before Genesis 1 was recorded by Moses (c1450BCE). While this epic describes the creation of the celestial heavens that has some parallels with the Genesis 1 account, they are sparse in the text and are buried in Mesopotamian religious lore. So Moses who worshiped the true God, Yahweh Elohim, exclusively would not have “borrowed” from a pagan epic to write the Genesis Flood account as bible critics claim. Near the end, tablet 5 mentions the sun and moon gods and the stars were created for “signs and seasons”, and tablet 6 mentions that various “wild beasts” and “beasts of the field” were caused to “come forth”. Together all these epic creation stories are actually evidence that the Mesopotamians got their story details orally from Ham’s early descendants who populated Mesopotamia and remembered some details of Noah’s Flood. The originators of the epics obviously did not have access to the written records that Noah carried in the ark since they differ greatly from the Hebrew record in Genesis.

The Sumerian King List and “antediluvian” (pre-Flood) rulers

The Sumerian King List of ancient Sumer (the earliest post-Flood civilization) is inscribed on the Weld-Blundell prism in the ancient Sumerian language from Mesopotamia{8}.  Different versions of the King List have been discovered (internet) that suggests that it was preserved as an oral tradition before it was later inscribed. The King list was originated by early Mesopotamians who were Nimrod’s descendants through Ham.  As was explained in Noah's Vineyard above, unlike Shem and Japheth, Ham’s descendants had no written records from before the Flood so discovered ancient Mesopotamian tablets later recorded different versions of their early oral traditions. The first section of this list names eight “antediluvian” regional rulers who reigned in Sumer, before “the flood swept over” as inscribed on the prism.  The Genesis 2:10-14 commentary explains that Sumer on the plain of Shinar was apparently in the same geographical location between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in pre-Flood times, near Eden.  The length of the reigns of these rulers is given in “sars” and “ners” which are uncertain time units today and give unbelievably long reigns of about 30,000 for attempted translation into years!  Genesis 4-9 records the oldest pre-Flood humans lived almost 1000 years.  The Sumerian King List records that warring transferred the rulership of pre-Flood Sumer among five cities, so each leader ruled from one city for the time shown in the first table of the Wikipedia article{8}.  These city names are Eridu, Bad-tibira, Larak, Zimbir, and  Shuruppak.  The most ancient archaeological sites in Iraq are associated with the ruins of these five “antediluvian” cities.  These city names{8} are active web links to articles about their archaeology.  A photo of the Eridu site is in Topical note 3{27}.  Eridu and Shuruppak were also inhabited for centuries during historical post-Flood Mesopotamia so these cities were apparently rebuilt after the Flood. Shuruppak continued until c2000BCE and Eridu until c600BCE. A clay tablet dated c2500BCE (more recent than Josephus’ Flood date) was discovered in the ruins of Shuruppak{18}, which suggests it was from the post-Flood period. However the oldest parts of these ruins would be pre-Flood if the city were rebuilt on the original site recorded in the Sumerian King List. Future archaeology might uncover this.  Early inscriptions in clay objects were discovered in the ruins of these cities (described below), but no inscriptions with the names of their pre-Flood rulers have yet been found to verify them in the Sumerian King List. 

Summarizing, the first section of the Sumerian King List acknowledges “the flood” and the cities (that are archaeological sites) and their rulers before it.  This implies post-Flood Sumer in Mesopotamia was previously a human population center near ancient Eden before the Flood.  Clay inscriptions discovered in these “antediluvian” archaeological sites in Iraq shows writing was in use when they were populated.  The discussion of the four rivers of Eden in the commentary for Genesis 2:10-14 shows these city ruins corroborate the location of post-Flood Sumer as being near Eden before the Flood where Genesis 2:8 records the humans originated.

The Sumerian King List continues seamlessly with local rulers who reigned concurrently after the Flood in the different cities of ancient Sumer, and it ends c2000BCE with the rise of the Babylonian civilization there.  King Enmebaragesi (c2600BCE) from the First dynasty of Kish is the oldest to have been verified historically, however the author(s) of this uninterrupted list of rulers on the prism surely intended that all of them were historical.  The recorded years of their reigns is generally compatible with the longer life spans that Genesis 11:10-18 records for people from this post-Flood period.  

World’s oldest writing

The world’s earliest writing was discovered in Mesopotamia.  It is called “proto-cuneiform” (or pre-cuneiform) and consists of pictographic symbols sketched in clay or lime stone with a pointed stylus and it was the only writing in use before 3000 BC{15}.  However, proto-cuneiform writing wasn’t an actual language with the more subtle conversational verb tenses of later phonetic languages, and some scholars likened it to “note taking”. The diagrams in the History section of {15} show how proto-cuneiform gradually evolved into the pictographic Sumerian cuneiform clay “wedge writing” style by 2500 BC.  This was about 700 years before the Hebrew alphabet was developed from Egyptian hieroglyphics c1870BCE (see Authorship of the Hebrew Law).  These diagrams show how sketched proto-cuneiform symbols were replaced with impressions made in clay using the cut end of a river reed that were easier to make. This cuneiform “wedge writing” style then continued to be used by the later phonetic languages of the Akkadians and Babylonians in Mesopotamia for over 2000 years.  Their later cuneiform symbols have mixed pictographic and phonetic usage. Proto-cuneiform inscriptions on limestone tablets from Kish and Uruk, the earliest post-Flood cities in Sumer on the Sumerian King List, are dated about 3500 BC{15}.  The early writing style is before Josephus' Flood date of 3192 BC which suggests their possible pre-Flood origin or a carbon-14 dating error (Topical note 7, Radiometric dating).  A proto-cuneiform inscribed baked brick from Eridu{16} and faint inscriptions on a clay foundation nail from Bad-tibira{17} were discovered in the ruins of these “antediluvian” (pre-Flood) cities in the Sumerian King List{8}.  Since some of these cities apparently were rebuilt and reinhabited temporarily soon after the Flood the inscriptions are not necessarily “pre-Flood” writing. However, they show mature proto-cuneiform writing was in use in Mesopotamia shortly before 3000BCE, about the time of the Flood according to Josephus’ chronology. Proto-cuneiform, the first known writing was a major human accomplishment that took time to develop, which suggests it was in use before the Flood.  Noah’s early descendants would have continued to use this writing in early post-Flood Mesopotamia which is consistent with discoveries of these inscriptions from this early period.

Did writing really exist in pre-Flood times? 

Genesis 5:1 introduced the detailed “genealogies” [Septuagint (Greek) bible] of Adam’s noteworthy god-fearing descendants through his later son Seth before the Flood.  The interesting Hebrew word “sphr” (scroll) was used by Moses in Genesis 5:1 to mean a “record” (of written genealogies).  It is doubtful that pre-Flood humans made paper scrolls since it is a complex process, so writing then was likely in clay, soft stone, or wood.  The earliest known form of paper was made from the papyrus plant as far back as the Egyptian first dynasty{20} (c2900BCE) and it was used to make scrolls.  Many bible versions translate “scroll” as “book”[KJV, ASV] or “written account”[NIV, NLT].  The word scroll in Genesis 5:1 implies that the genealogies in Genesis 5 were pre-Flood written records.  

Historian Josephus plainly states that writing was in use before the Flood by reporting Seth’s pre-Flood descendants (Genesis 5:3-8) inscribed brick and stone pillars with their astronomical knowledge and the stone pillar survived the Flood to Josephus’ lifetime in the 1st century CE{2}. This writing would have been proto-cuneiform that continued to be used after the Flood. So people inscribed important records in clay and stone in pre-Flood times.       

Noah’s detailed Flood account in Genesis chapters 6-8 recorded exact days of certain events during the year-long Flood so it evidently originated from a written record. However the flood stories in the Mesopotamian epics and worldwide cultural accounts (except those apparently copied by some of Japheth’s descendants described below) do not describe any events on specific days.  This implies that Noah kept a daily written log of significant events during the Flood year that Moses later used as source material for Genesis.  More evidence for Noah’s written log comes from the Flood story song that Japheth’s descendants, the Hmong people of Indo-China sing at weddings and funerals (described below). It accurately paraphrased the Genesis Flood record and included “55 days of misting and drizzle” at the end of the Flood that Moses apparently omitted, evidently from Noah’s complete written record.  Noah would have written only one detailed Flood account and his favored, eldest son Shem (Genesis 9:26-27) would have inherited his record. Noah evidently also preserved the written creation accounts and genealogies on the ark that were originated by the humans before the Flood. They would have all been written in proto-cuneiform{15} the only writing that was in use before 3000BCE, the time of the Flood (Josephus’ date). This pictographic language used symbols for ideas instead of word sounds so its meaning would have survived the sudden confusion of spoken language recorded in Genesis 11:6-8. Evidently Shem’s descendants later translated these pictographic records into their new spoken languages after they migrated from Mesopotamia.  Then they were recorded into new phonetic written language by Shem’s descendants, and recopied and preserved by the Hebrews.  These contained Noah’s “eye-witness” Flood account and the pre-Flood written creation records and genealogies that Moses used as source material for his Book of Genesis.

Worldwide human migration (continued from Topical note 3B):

Genesis 11:7-9 recorded that after the confusion of spoken language most people migrated away from Shinar to fill the earth according to God’s command (Genesis 9:1). Table of Nations maps show they migrated in groups of related families of the descendants of Noah’s three sons. These maps show Shem’s descendants moved into the middle east, Japheth’s descendants mostly moved into Europe, and Ham’s descendants migrated to Africa{33}. History shows some of Ham’s descendants and some of Japheth’s descendants also migrated to Asia{32b}. Some later crossed land bridges to populate Australia({38,39} Topical note 3) and the Americas{38}. The groups that migrated east through Asia traveled perhaps up to a hundred miles before settling in unoccupied habitable land with a water source to raise families. Progress of those migrating across Europe would have been slowed by the developing ice age after the Flood so these (Neanderthal) people remained in caves except during the warmer months when migration was possible. When children were grown the more adventurous ones continued to move on. History shows the first humans arrived in China{47,48} and Indo-China c2000BCE{32b}. Apparently it took about 1000 years for the descendants of Ham and Japheth to migrate 4000 miles there from Shinar after the confusion of spoken languages, that averaged about 100 miles per 25 year generation. Then perhaps it took another 1000 years to reach the distant Americas. Topical note 3{15} references discoveries made by conventional scientists that humans first arrived in the Americas from Asia before 12,000BP, but this date of before creation week (c7500BP according to Josephus) was determined by carbon-14 dating of early campsites. Radiocarbon dating gives excessively old ancient dates prior to 1400BCE as is explained in Topical note 7.

Many of Cush’s same descendants who migrated from the Middle East arrived in their North African destinations perhaps 200 years after they started when people still lived for hundreds of years. However, no one who began the worldwide migration from Shinar in Mesopotamia lived to reach their final destinations at Gibraltar in western Europe, or Australia and the Americas. Migration would have been relentlessly repeated generation after generation until all the earth’s continents and islands were occupied. Each generation was isolated in time and location, but they remembered the early years of living with their parents before they moved and had vague memories of stories told about their grandparents. Long before the various people groups finally reached their respective lands’ ends they apparently completely forgot their ancestors dispersed from Mesopotamia, because the creation and flood stories of worldwide cultures never mention of this{38}. Today we know of this worldwide migration because of the biblical record preserved in Genesis 11:8. The people remembered and obeyed the angry deity’s command to fill the earth (Genesis 9:1,7), and they kept the vague memory He destroyed it in an ancient flood (Genesis 6-8) and incorporated this story into their local cultural traditions in their final destinations.

Worldwide cultural flood stories: 

Only the biblical record in Genesis 11:5-9 correctly explains that humans filled the earth by their worldwide migration from Shinar in Mesopotamia after the confusion of spoken language there (c3100BCE). Conventional science teaches humans originally evolved from apes in Africa then populated the earth.  Although modernist bible critics call them myths, nearly all world cultures have written their own ancient global flood and creation stories so they are too common to ignore.  Over 200 worldwide cultural accounts have been collected by early Christian missionaries, anthropologists, and ethnologists and analyzed{1}.  For example, the Chinese flood story includes that eight people in a boat were saved.  Hundreds more world cultural creation and flood stories are published in books{36,38}. It should be emphasized that the missionaries obtained the flood and creation stories from hearing indigenous historical beliefs while learning their languages before they taught the biblical accounts to them{36}. Their stories are interwoven with their ancestral pagan deities, so clearly they would not have been taught by recent bible instruction. These indigenous stories give details that were tailored by and for each culture to fit their local pagan religions{38}, as was the case with the older Mesopotamian epics written by Ham’s descendants.   Yet they all include some tiny detail or a short paraphrase in common with these accounts in Genesis that hints they are long-held memories of events from their ancestors ({36} p252).  When the duration of the flood in these cultural stories is specified it is almost always described as lasting about a week like the Mesopotamian epics, and that it occurred after their earliest ancestors first arrived in their new worldwide destinations{36,38}.  The memory of an ancient global flood that was caused by an angry deity stayed with them and drove them to continue migrating to fill the earth.

No mention was made in nearly any of the worldwide cultural stories of the global human migration of all people that started from Mesopotamia{38}. (There were rare exceptions among Japheth’s descendants, see below).  So the punctuated human migrations that isolated the scores of generations of migrators, like beads on a string, caused them to forget that their ancestors originally started from there. Each generation would have remembered only their parents and stories of their grandparents that remained behind. 

Why do the creation and Flood records kept by some of Japheth’s descendants remarkably agree so closely with those in Genesis?

The Table of nations maps adapted from Genesis 10 that was written by Moses show only the world regions near and pertinent to the nation of Israel and do not include Asia. The Hmong migrated to peninsular Indo-China c2000BCE, around 1000 years after the Flood and arrived about the same time as Ham’s descendants in what is neighboring China. These different groups met and the Chinese regarded to the Hmong as “Miaotsu”, meaning "barbarian outsiders" {32b}. The Hmong people claim to have descended from Jah-phu (Japheth) the son of Nuah (Noah), so these groups naturally would have had different characteristic physical features because each descended from a different son of Noah and his wife. While the Hmong migrated there from Mesopotamia they kept accurate ancestral records (unlike Ham’s descendants). Their creation and Flood records retell those in Genesis{32}, although they originated hundreds of years before Moses wrote them. The Hmong still sing an amazing song at weddings and funerals that paraphrases the content of Genesis chapters 1-9 and 11! It includes the details of the Flood account in Genesis 6-9 and the rain lasted for 40 days and 40 nights. It also names Noah’s descendants- Lo Han (Ham), Cusha (Cush), Mesay (Mizraim); and the descendants of Lo Shen (Shem)- Elan (Elam), and Nga-shur (Asshur), and several generations of Japheth’s descendants as recorded in Genesis 10:2. The song continues that God confused the peoples’ language and scattered them to all parts of the earth, as recorded in Genesis 11:8. The Hmong claim this story dates from their first ancestors (c2000BCE){32a}. It then predated the Hebrew scriptures c1450BCE and later Christian missionaries from c50CE onward which could not have been their information source. And it corroborates their claim of ancestry from Noah’s son, Japheth. This lengthy story that agrees with the Genesis accounts indicates that it was copied from written records. Presumably it was originally developed as a song recited in couplets to aid memory{32} when the Hmong had no written language. Today the Hmong are an isolated group of about 12 million that live scattered among the several countries of Indo-China without a country of their own.

Japheth was a favored son of Noah (Genesis 9:26-27) and was on good terms with his elder brother Shem. So Japheth’s family would have had access to the written records Shem inherited from his father Noah that were carried in the ark. Moses’ later creation and Flood accounts in Genesis ultimately drew from these translated original records. The claimed authenticity and perfect agreement of the Hmong’s lengthy song with the Genesis accounts is evidence that an ancestor of the Hmong people in Japheth’s family copied portions of Shem’s original records written in proto-cuneiform before the confusion of language and migrating from Mesopotamia! Evidently this pictographic language survived the confusion of spoken language and these records were translated into their new phonetic languages later. Because these descendants of Japheth used the same original information source that Moses later used, their stories accurately paraphrased the early accounts in Genesis.

Other European descendants of Japheth kept ancient genealogies and Flood records that agree with Moses’ record in Genesis-

The pre-Christian Saxons of northern costal Germany were descendants of Japheth as shown in Table of nations maps adapted from Genesis 10, (Topical note 3{33}). They kept accurate records of their ancestry and recorded their continuous genealogy back to Iafet (Japheth) and Noe (Noah){37}. Their records referred to the Flood as a historical event and stated their ancestor, Japheth was Noah’s son and he was carried in the ark{34}. They record the time from creation to the Flood as 2,240 winters (years), which closely agrees with 1st century historian Josephus (2200 years). Also, their dates for creation 5200BC and for the Flood 2958BC{34} are close to Josephus’ dates (respectively, 5454BC and 3200BC) but are not exactly the same. These Saxon dates are not exactly the same as those from other known ancient sources so the Saxons didn’t copy them from others.

The ancient Greeks were also descendants of Japheth as shown in Table of nations maps adapted from Genesis 10, Topical note 3{33}). Their flood story was a lengthy accurate paraphrase the Genesis account as follows: "The people who lived before the Flood were wicked and lawless and didn’t keep their promises, and were not hospitable to strangers. Therefore the fountains of the deep opened and torrents of rain fell on them. The rivers swelled and sea spread far over the land until there was nothing left but water everywhere and all men perished. Only Deucalion (the Noah figure) with his family and all of the animals in pairs survived. He had a great ark and the animals were all friendly with them and they sailed in the ark as long as the flood prevailed on the earth. Deucalion formed the link between the first and second races of men"{35}.

Nearly all cultures worldwide have an ancient creation or flood story{36,38}. The descendants of Ham and Japheth migrated to fill the earth. Shem’s descendants who kept Noah’s ancient records that Moses included in his Book of Genesis remained living in the middle east. Where the descendants of Japheth or Ham settled worldwide might be inferred by how well their cultural creation or Flood stories agree with those in Genesis if they don’t specifically mention their ancestry back to Noah’s family. Identifiers appear to be the same flood duration or a lengthy paraphrase of the creation or flood events that agrees with the Genesis accounts. The Hmomg and Saxons specifically tell their ancestry was from Japheth and Noah. The ancient Greeks don’t, but their flood story (above) includes a lengthy and accurate paraphrase of the Genesis Flood account. The flood story told by the Jicarilla Apache tribe in New Mexico tells of a flood duration that agrees with the Genesis account- the steady rain lasted “40 days and 40 nights”{32a}. This rare flood duration agreement with Genesis among the usual muddled world cultural flood stories that tell of a one-week flood suggests an ancestor of their tribe copied it from Noah’s written records. So this indigenous North American tribe might have descended from Japheth.

Is there conclusive evidence that the creation and Flood accounts in Genesis were borrowed from Mesopotamian epic stories, as bible critics claim?

No. This claim is only plausible because these Mesopotamian epics were written before Genesis was recorded c1450BCE. Evidence suggests that the epic flood story details were inspired by a severe local flood in Mesopotamia c2900BCE (or earlier). Few details in the epic stories agree with the biblical accounts and they are buried in confusing Mesopotamian religious lore. Likely those few details that are in common with the Genesis Flood account were vaguely remembered from old oral accounts of Noah’s Flood that were handed down by early Mesopotamians after the confusion of language, and were later added to their epics. The detailed daily event record of the Flood in Genesis 7-8 implied it originated from a written account.

Conclusions:

Topical note 4 explains the credibility of Noah’s year-long global Flood and answers critics’ common objections. Weighty evidence presented supports the biblical Flood was a historical event and Noah was a historical person. Recently published genealogies of the early European nation leaders are continuous back to their historical ancestors, Japheth and Noah({21}Topical note 3). The Sumerian King List details "antediluvian" (pre-Flood) rulers and their five cities that are associated with the oldest archaeological sites in modern Iraq{8},({27} Topical note 3). About 200 world cultural global flood stories contain pieces of the Genesis Flood account{1,38}. Certain of Japheth’s ancient descendants that settled in what are now Greece, Germany, and Indo-China recorded accurately paraphrased lengthy sections of the Genesis 1 creation account, Noah’s Flood account, and the dispersion of mankind with no mention of pagan deities{32,34,35}. They were recorded before Moses wrote his accounts in Genesis for the Hebrews c1450BCE, which suggests they copied from original records that Noah kept on the ark.

Evidence shows that clay and stone media were used to inscribe records in pre-Flood times, which provides credibility that the biblical genealogies were originally recorded by the earliest humans. Noah’s god-fearing family carried them on the ark and passed them on with his recorded Flood account to his eldest favored son Shem. Evidence from ancient writing suggests these accounts were written in (pictographic) proto-cuneiform, the world’s oldest known writing that dates from before 3000BCE, the time of the Flood according to Josephus. This pictographic language would have survived the confusion of spoken (phonetic) languages in Genesis 11:7{43} to be translated later.

The confusion of spoken language recorded in Genesis 11:7 was corroborated as a historic event in the ancient Sumerian epic tablet, Enermerkar and the Lord of Aratta ({34}Topical note 3, Confusion of language…). Shem’s descendants translated and recopied from these original historical records that were kept in the ark into their new phonetic languages after their dispersion from Mesopotamia (Genesis 11:8). Later, Hebrew families kept them with the accounts of their patriarchs and families and passed them all to Moses. Moses then edited the ancient accounts he acquired from Hebrew families who kept them, and he compiled them into his Book of Genesis with God’s direction during the Hebrew Exodus from Egypt c1430BCE.

Click on live web links to select internet references:

{1} https://www.icr.org/rticle/why-dohavees-nearly culture-have-traditional-globa

(worldwide cultural flood accounts)

{2} Maier, Paul, 1988, Josephus- The Essential Writings, Kregel Publ. pp21-25

(book). If Abraham lived c2200BCE, as is commonly believed by conservative

bible scholars, the Flood occurred 3192 BC or c5192 years ago.

{3} https://www.icr.org/article/accelerated-decay-theoretical-considerations/

{4} https://www.icr.org/article/radiohalos-granites-evidence-for-accelerated/

{5} April 2020, Acts & Facts, ICR Publ, Dragon Encounters exhibit, p16.

{6} The Answers Book, 1990, Batten, D, ed., Master Books, pp191-2.

{7}https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk03u1UkXmdWd48M_IELJDuWjj-WqxA:1587929910281&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=kaibab+upwarp&client=firefox-b-1-d&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj80Ovx64bpAhW5IjQIHQ3hDX8Q7Al6BAgJECc&biw=1920&bih=1086#imgrc=A6EwXxD6o9eB0M

(Kaibab Upwarp)

{8} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_King_List

(Sumerian King List)

{9} https://www.ancient.eu/Eridu_Genesis/

(Eridu Genesis, World History Encyclopedia)

{10}https://webpages.uidaho.edu/engl257/Ancient/epic_of_gilgamesh.htm (Gilgamesh epic)

{11} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh

(Gilgamesh epic tablets. Flood story begins on tablet 9, Flood

description is on tablet 11) {12} Maier, Paul, 1988, Josephus- The Essential Writings, Kregel Publ. p22. (book)

{13} ibid, p21.

{14} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh

(Historical Gilgamesh)

{15} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform

(Cuneiform writing)

{16}https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eridu#/media/File:Fired_clay_brick_stamped_with_the_name_of_Amar-Sin,_Ur_III,_from_Eridu,_currently_housed_in_the_British_Museum.jpg

{17}https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badtibira#/media/File:Foundation_nail_Entemena_Louvre_AO22934.jpg

(Inscribed foundation nail)

{18}https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuruppak#/media/File:List_of_titles_of_different_occupations,_clay_tablet_from_Shuruppak,_Southern_Mesopotamia,_Iraq,_on_display_in_the_Pergamon_Museum.jpg

(Oldest surviving inscribed clay tablet, dated c2500BCE)

{19} https://www.ancient.eu/article/227/the-atrahasis-epic-the-great-flood--the-meaning-of/

(Atrahasis epic, World History Encyclopedia)

{20} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus

(History of papyrus)

{21} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atra-Hasis

(Atra-Hasis epic, Wikipedia)

{22} https://www.livius.org/sources/content/oriental-varia/eridu-genesis/

(Translated text of Eridu Genesis tablet)

{23} https://www.livius.org/sources/content/anet/104-106-the-epic-of-atrahasis/

(Translated text of Atrahasis tablets)

{24} https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Atra-Hasis(Synopsis of Atra-Hasis text)

{25} https://www.livius.org/articles/misc/gr

(Dates of local floods in ancient Mesopotamia, and comparison chart of flood stories)

{26} https://www.ancient.eu/Enki/

(Mesopotamian god Enki)

{27} Gramling, Carolyn, Science News, January 16, 2021, Shaking up

Earth, pp20-21.(Review article of Earth’s plate tectonics, pp16-22)

{28} Grossman, Lisa, Science News, April 14, 2018, Venus shows off new kind of tectonics, p7. (Vensus’ fractured crust)

{29}http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2982891.stm#:~:text=In%20the%20book%20%2D%20actually%20a,river%20parted%20following%20his%20death.

(Gilgamesh's tomb)

{30}https://www.patheos.com/blogs/religionprof/2014/11/the-nippur-flood-tablet-and-genesis.html

(Compare Hilprect’s original rendering of the raw readable cuneiform outside of the brackets and combined with his bracketed insertions.)

{31} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketef_Hinnom

(“informed deduction” used in translation of Kefef Hinnom scrolls)

{32} Cooper, Bill, 2011, The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis, pp240-241 (Hmong peoples’ creation and Flood song)

{32a} Ibid. p316 (Jicarilla Apache flood account)

{32b} Ibid, p239

{33} ibid., p329. (Dr. John Morris’ conclusion of worldwide cultural Flood accounts)

{34} ibid. pp273-275. (Saxon genealogical and creation and Flood records)

{35} ibid. pp29-27. (Ancient Greek Flood story)

{36} ibid.pp212-366 (Summary ofworldwide cultural flood and creation stories)

{37} Cooper, Bill, 1996, After the Flood, New Wine press publ., pp46-129,198-205(book)

(Saxon genealogies back to Noah)

{38} Ligouri, Nick, 2021, Echoes from Ararat, Master Books (book) (Summary of cultural creation and flood stories from North, Central, and South America)

{39} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sumerian_creation_myth (See the “Sumerian creation myth, Flood myth” section of the article. Eridu Genesis flood story corresponds to a local flood in Mesopotamia)

{40} Batten, Don, ed.; Ham, et al, 1990, The Revised and Expanded Answers Book, Master Books, pp150,172,181 (Noah’s ark with a rectangular hull. Animals pictured on p181 likely were just old enough to eat vegetation.)

{41} ibid. p165. (Computer simulation of plate movement during the Flood)

{42} ibid. p164. (Diagram of oceanic plate being subducted below continental plate with formation of high mountains)

{43} Cooper, Bill, 2011, The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis, pp382-383 (book) (Confusion of language at Babel as a reason for poor record keeping of worldwide creation and Flood accounts

{44}https://www.thoughtco.com/map-of-tectonic-plates-and-their-boundaries-1441098 (Map of Earth’s tectonic plates)

{45} Tompkins and Clarey, Acts and Facts, Dec 2021, p10. (Initial rate of crustal separation caused by plate tectonics)

{46}https://www.loc.gov/resource/g9096c.ct003148/

(World sea floor map showing fracture zones)

{47)https://www.historyhit.com/the-dynasties-that-ruled-china-in-order/

{48} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_China

{49} Hebert, Jake, Acts and Facts (Inst.Crea.Res. publ), Five Global Evidences for a Young Earth, July 2019, p12. This refers to

{50} Humphreys, D.R., 2008, Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Creationism. A.A. Snelling, ed. Pittsburgh, PA.

{51} Humphrys,D.R., 1993, Earth's Magnetic Field is Young, Acts & Facts 22(8)

{52} Hebert, Jake, 2018, Acts and Facts (Inst.Crea.Res. publ), The Bible Best Explains the ice Age, November, p11.

{52a} Hebert, Jake, ‘Big Science’ Celebrates Invalid Milankovitch Paper, Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org, December 26, 2016.

{53} Hays, J.D, J. Imbre, N.J. Shakleton, 1976. Variations in the Earth’s Orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages. Science 194 (4270):1121-1132.

{54} Tomkins, J and Johnson, J, Scientific and Biblical Truth Converge for Gopher Wood, Acts and Facts (ICR publ), May 2019, p14.

{55} https://answersingenesis.org/noahs-ark/what-did-noahs-ark-look-like/

Figure 3. A photo shows the rectangular ark pictured in{40} as it appeared to an eye witness on snowy Mt. Ararat.

{56} 2025, Clarey, Tim. Science Scripture and Salvation, Inst. for Creation Research radio broadcast, KWVE FM, January 12.

{57} 2025, Clarey, Tim. Science Scripture and Salvation, Inst. for Creation Research radio broadcast, KWVE FM, January 26. The pre-Flood bible reference translated as “pitch” in English use a different Hebrew word later in Genesis and Exodus.  The earth’s oil reserves formed during Noah’s Flood: Oil was produced from decaying vegetation within 200 years after burial at 10,000-1500ft deep. Lab experiment shows oil may be produced in an hour after heating oceanic plankton. As shown by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, oil is decomposed quickly by bacteria that live everywhere in the earth. Underground oil deposits in rock can’t last “millions” of years.

5. Earth’s global tropical climate

Before Noah's Flood, Earth's created atmosphere contained the needed gas composition in time for plants, creatures, and humans. Together, they all maintained Earth’s breathable air. A type of dragon flies, “griffenflies” lived then that had wingspans up to 29 inches and are said to be unable to fly in today's thin air.  So some creation scientists suggest that before the Flood atmospheric air pressure was higher than now to support the preponderance of over-size animals and insects.

The fast-growing, luxuriant vegetation of the pre-Flood supercontinent of geologic Pangea continues to supply the modern world's demand for fossil fuels.  This single land mass before the Flood occupied a full hemisphere of the earth, and the other hemisphere was all ocean ({11}Topical note 3A), Pangea interactive map). Pangea was introduced in Topical note 3A from a biblical perspective as Earth's original landmass (Genesis 1:9).   Before the Flood the supercontinent had a tropical climate even at its high latitudes, as indicated by abundant coal layers and fossil tropical plants and animals that are found at high latitudes in Antarctica{1} and Norway{2} today. 

Why does the modern world no longer have an all tropical climate?

Topical note 4 described how the one-year Flood fractured the single continent into several smaller land masses. Aerosols from vulcanism during the Flood year cooled the Earth and caused a lengthy ice age right after it (Topical note 4, The Ice Age). Up to 30% of the earth in the far north and south became covered with ice sheets.  Glaciers are still present today at high latitudes but they have receded and now cover only about 10% of the land. Broad temperate climate zones formed between the equator and both poles after the Flood. Today Earth’s tropical climate is restricted to a 30 degree belt near the equator, at low elevations. Plate tectonics moved the broken crust all around the earth that created high snow-capped mountains where the edges collided. Continental drift has moved antarctica southward to surround the frigid south pole. Before the Flood this area was located in Pangea’s far southern region as shown on the Pangea interactive map, yet fossils show it was tropical{1}. 

Click live web links to read internet references:

{1}https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk01_0kn9pzmzrFU4sXqwginmXWlPcg%3A1613686002552&source=hp&ei=8uQuYK-PH8fb-wTDpJPYDw&iflsig=AINFCbYAAAAAYC7zArNfc2Qx6x7paR7E7UBtT8VeMUUb&q=tropical+fossils+in+antarctica&oq=tropical+fossils+from+antacctica&gs_lcp=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&sclient=gws-wiz  (Antarctic fossils that include tropical plants and dinosaurs)

{2}http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/tropical-fossil-forests-svalbard-norway-03449.html#:~:text=A%20team%20of%20UK%20paleontologists,fossil%20forest%20in%20Svalbard%2C%20Norway

(Fossil tropical forest in Norway)

January 2025

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