Noah's Ark

Noah brought on to the Ark, his wife, his three sons and their wives, plus:

• two of each sort of animal into the Ark - cattle, fowl and every living thing (Genesis 6:19-22), or
• seven of each clean animal, but only two of each unclean animal (Genesis 7:1-5).

The reason for this difference is that there are actually two different Flood accounts woven together, so that unless read carefully they seem to be just one account.

The verses attributed to the Priestly author are: Genesis 6:9-22, 7:6, 7:8-9, 7:11, 7:13-16a, 7:18-21, 7:24, 8:1-2a, 8:3b-5, 8:7, 8:13a, 8:14-19, 9:1-17.

The verses attributed to the Yahwist are: Genesis 6:5-8, 7:1-5, 7:7, 7:10, 7:12, 7:16b-17, 7:22-23, 8:2b-3a, 8:6, 8:8-12, 8:13b, 8:20-22.

• Lots of sedimentary (water deposited) rock all over the earth.

• Evidence through fossilization of rapid burial of millions of organisms in the above strata.

• Sufficient water on the planet to 'do the job'.

• Very little evidence of pre-flood civilization i.e. culture and language arising relatively recently and suddenly.

• Very different climate on the earth in the past.

• Many flood stories in the various people groups around the world.
• Lack of Genetic variability supporting descent from a small population
• Mutation rates suggesting a recent origin for mankind
• massive vulcanism in the past

All of the above are in fact amply demonstrated to be so.

In relation to the amount of water, a flat earth would be covered to a height of 1 1/2 miles. Add to this the recent discovery of a massive ocean underneath East Asia (estimated to be similar in size to the arctic ocean). This discovery suggests there may be a lot more water in the planet than we know about.

In relation to climate, there are coal deposits in Antarctica, as well as common scientific recognition that the climate of the planet has radically changed in many regions from the past (although of course the time-frames given are in most cases different).

Regarding fossilization, it is clear that many organisms were buried both rapidly and catastrophically. Massive fossil graveyards speak of rapid burial and of specimens being washed into their final position by water, a lot of water. One alone could always be a local flood and some may indeed be so, but there are many of these around the world.

Lack of real genetic variability suggests that humans have arisen from one individual. Some studies of mutation rates in mitochondrial DNA (mt DNA) have suggested that the human population could not be as old as normally suggested since we would not exist. The human genome shows evidence of running down. Thousands of genetic disorders are documented. This documentation due to modern medical science demonstrates the true nature of our genetic make up. This relates to the flood since this is believed to have happened in the relatively recent past. The state of human genetics as science reveals it is not inconsistent with this.

The massive vulcanism in the past is an acknowledged fact. It is generally interpreted as fitting into a long-age paradigm. Under a different interpretation 'the fountains of the great deep' which are specifically connected with the flood would relate to massive vulcanism. Contrary to popular misconception, a high proportion of all volcanic eruptions (even today) contain water (around 80% or higher).

Answer

For the sake of balance on the issue, I am going to use the above reasonings but demonstrate that there is indeed no evidence for Noah's flood.

• Lots of sedimentary (water deposited) rock all over the earth: There is indeed sedimentary rock all over the planet, however, there are not significant amounts of it stemming from the same time period which would demonstrate a truly global flood occuring at one point in history.

• Evidence through fossilization of rapid burial of millions of organisms in the above strata: Again, this is true, but just 'cause you find a couple things buried doesn't mean that they were necessarily buried at the same time. Not only that, but the process by which sediment turns to sedimentary rock takes hundreds of years (on the low end). If we accept that a flood happened as portrayed in the bible, there is no way of knowing if all of the sediment in a particular band came from the exact 40-day period.

• Sufficient water on the planet to 'do the job': There may be sufficient water on earth to cause a flood, but to have the dramatic rains of Noah's flood happen over a 40 day period you would have to have VAST quantities in the atmosphere. So much in fact that the sunlight could not make it to Earth. You have to accept the existence of something called "the firmament" which was essentially an atmosphere of water that surrounded the earth from the days of creation up till the flood. This cannot exist based on what we know about physics. So if the flood happened, prior to the flood the laws of physics had to be DRAMATICALLY different than they are now, or that God intervened and made these things possible.

• Very little evidence of pre-flood civilization i.e. culture and language arising relatively recently and suddenly: This is absolutely not true. Noah's flood would have happened approximately 3000 BC, at which time there were numerous civilizations including: The chinese, the Japanese, the Indian, African tribal civilizations, Egypt, Phoenician, Sumerian, Celtic, Incan and Aztec. Many of these groups existed continuously through the time period in which the flood supposedly occured and none of them recorded anything of significance.

• Very different climate on the earth in the past: There was a different climate in the past, but one must remember that the earth regularly goes through ice ages and warming periods. Depending on where you look at the climate/temperature curve (typically based off the oxygen and other trace gases burried in the polar ice caps at different levels) there were many times over the last 6000 years in which the environment was pretty much the same as it is today. In fact you have to go back over 12000 years (before the earth was formed if you accept the chronology in the Bible which puts the creation of the world at somewhere around 6,014 years ago) before there is even any really significant changes to climate.

• Many flood stories in the various people groups around the world: There are indeed many flood stories found amongst a vast array of cultures. However, some of them (including a few of the cultures I mentioned earlier) wrote their flood stories some thousand years before the flood of Noah was supposed to happen. And other cultures wrote their flood story having taken place well after Noah. Early man had no control over the elements and so there are many tales of floods, fires, earthquakes and other dramatic events found in other cultures. Dragons never existed either, and yet nearly every culture has some form of the dragon. These are what we call "archetypal" ideas and seem to be a ubiquitous part of human nature.

• Lack of Genetic variability supporting descent from a small population: This is true, but would also be just as easily explained if one accepts that people evolved from a common ancestor. One factor weighing against the "descendants of noah" idea though, is that there is actually too much variability for us all to have descended from the same family a few thousand years ago.

• Mutation rates suggesting a recent origin for mankind: We are actually finding more and more evidence that homo sapiens sapiens (our species) is actually older than previously thought. That aside, there is no real consensus on what an "average mutation rate" really is within the scientific community. We do have modern trends but they give us little to no indication to what the rate was even a few hundred years ago, let alone thousands.

• massive vulcanism in the past: This is also true, but implies we don't have massive vulcanism in the present. In terms of geologic averages, our current rate is a little lower than in the recent past (last thousand years or so) but not significantly so. Also, there is no link between vulcanism and flooding, so this one is kind of an irrelevant point. Hydrogen and Oxygen are common elements on earth, with or without volcanic erruptions, and are present in nearly every sort of event. The heat from volcanos does help the hydrogen and oxygen to join into water molecules, but there is a critical flaw in this thesis: If the rain from the flood were the result of thousands (more likely millions) of essentially simultaneous erruptions, we would expect to see a very specific band of ash in the geologic record which would have settled after the flood waters would have subsided. There is also the problem that if there was that much volcanic ash in the atmosphere there would not be enough sunlight in the air to make a rainbow.

No one would debate that floods, even massive floods can and do happen. Or that there may have very well been such a flood during the time of Noah. But there is NO evidence that there has ever been one giant global flood which wiped out everything and everyone with the exception of one family.

The science just doesn't support it in any way, shape or form. Of course, this doesn't mean that God didn't change the laws so that everything worked out exactly as portrayed in the bible. If you accept the story of Noah on faith, there's always a way for god to have made it happen. If you accept the story of Noah based on the "science"... you need to go back to junior high science class. If you accept that the story of Noah was just another myth like hundreds of other cultures, then it doesn't matter if the science backs it up or not.

Either 40 days or one year:

• Genesis 8:4 says that the Ark came to rest on Mount Ararat (5 km above sea level) on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. Verse 8:5 says that in the tenth month the tops of the mountains were seen. Finally, on the fist month of the new year (8:13a) the waters were dried up on the land.
• Genesis 8:6 says that at the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the Ark and (8:8-12) sent forth a dove to tell that the land was dry.

The difference arises from the differences in two different accounts of the same story, that have been intertwined to the point that can seem to be jusdt the one account, but for the internal contradictions. The verses attributed to the Priestly author are: Genesis 6:9-22, 7:6, 7:8-9, 7:11, 7:13-16a, 7:18-21, 7:24, 8:1-2a, 8:3b-5, 8:7, 8:13a, 8:14-19, 9:1-17. The verses attributed to the Yahwist are: Genesis 6:5-8, 7:1-5, 7:7, 7:10, 7:12, 7:16b-17, 7:22-23, 8:2b-3a, 8:6, 8:8-12, 8:13b, 8:20-22.