the flood

There's a down side to being a Christian from birth. Sometimes as a kid, I think I accepted things a little too readily. Take this famous example from Genesis 7:

¹⁷ For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. ¹⁸ The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. ¹⁹ They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. ²⁰ The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet. Every living thing that moved on the earth perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. ²² Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. ²³ Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

²⁴ The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.

It all seemed really reasonable as a kid. The people sinned; God punished them. And what more fitting way than to wash the earth clean. If I saw this for the first time today, the first thing I would ask is probably where did all the water come from? And where did it go after the flood subsided? So this was the question we explored over the weekend, and the answers are absolutely fascinating.

Firstly, the wording of the passage and the surrounding verses make it quite clear that this was a global flood that literally covered the whole earth. So by the theory of conservation of matter, the water could not just have appeared and disappeared.

Geologists who studied the event conclude that this was no simple shower. It was quite a cataclysmic that permanently altered the earth's ecology. A series of violent earthquakes tore the ground asunder and reshaped the face of our planet. At the same time, the atmosphere, which till then had comprised a dense layer of gaseous water, chose to purge itself of fluids in a continuous torrent. The event is recorded as such:

¹¹ In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. ¹² And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.

The scientific record is even more interesting. Many of the fossils discovered today are dated back to that period. And it was interesting to be reminded that fossils are not formed simply by animals that lay down and died. Decomposition would have gotten to them, if they were not eaten first by other animals. Rather, fossils can only be formed when the plants or animals are subjected to abrupt and immense temperature and pressure, such as in a volcanic eruption or earthquake. Hence, the discovery of a rich fossil record from that time period is an indication of seismic activity.

The earth's surface has also changed significantly, evidenced by the discovery of aquatic and plant live on the top of mountains such as Everest. These mountains were once underwater, until they were pushed into the sky by shifting tectonic plates.

And lastly, one interesting indication of how the atmosphere has changed comes from the dinosaurs. For one thing, they are extinct. For another, the wings of the Archaeopteryx could not have kept it aloft in our current atmosphere. So the air must have been more dense, once upon a time.

Anyway, these were just a few of the interesting factoids I gleaned, recorded here for posterity. When I have time I will probably search the web for more juicy details.

Added later: The Juicy Details
There's actually a ton of stuff on the web. But I am linking just a couple that take a clear, coherent and concise position. All articles are one-sided; would love to find any material that resolves the issue head to head.
Arguments for the Global Flood and a Young Earth
1) In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood (7th Edition) by Dr. Walt Brown
2) Creation Evolution Encyclopedia
3) The flood in historical accounts
Dissenting Views
1) Genesis vs. Geology, Stephen Jay Gould, The Atlantic Monthly; September 1982;
2) Answers in Creation
3) Radiometric Resource List and the Radiometric Dating Game debate
4) Radiometric Dating - A Christian Perspective