With the national media running stories about a recent claim to have discovered Noah's ark I am considering the question of whether the flood was global or local. Instead of pretending that I have got this all sorted out in my own mind I have decided to begin by summarising the evidence for each position starting with the global view. They may well be contradictory but I'll sort that out later.
1) The waters are said to cover the high mountains (Gen 7:18-24, 8:1-5).
2) The Hebrew word used does not just mean local flood, it refers to a unique "cataclysmic" event.
3) All "living creatures" and all people were killed except Noah's family and the animals on the ark Gen 7:21, Gen 9:1.
4) The ark was massive, big enough to take many more animals than representatives of the local population.
5) It lasted too long (150 days or almost a year, Gen 8:9, 14) to be a merely local flood.
6) God promised he would never flood the earth again (Gen 6:13, Isaiah 54:9) and there have been numerous local floods since so it must have been a unique global event.
7) Peter links it to the world wide judgment by fire to come (2 Peter 3:5-7, See also Matt 24:37-39).
8) If it was local then why not just tell Noah to move!
Well that's a start. Certainly when you read the account in most English translations it appears blatantly obvious that it is a worldwide flood, wiping out all animals and people so that God can start again with Noah, his sons and their wives. Tomorrow I'll gather arguments for a local flood.
No comments:
Post a Comment