Biblical History of Man: The Flood part 1

The biblical flood is an event that is a highly-contended issue.  Naturalistic scientists do not believe that a world-wide flood as described in the Bible ever happened.  They say that there is no evidence to support such an event.  As to the many cultural stories of a flood, they claim that they describe only a local flood occurrence.

Unfortunately, many in the church have adopted this naturalistic view, believing that science has shown that a world-wide catastrophic flood never occurred.  To try to explain the records in scripture that tell of the flood, they will explain it as an allegory.

But there is much evidence of a global flood.  And the evidence is better explained by a rapid flood than by a slow sequence of events that alternately submerge and raise land masses above the water.

So, we will begin with a look at scripture and what it says about the flood.

2 Peter 3:3-7
³ Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, ⁴ and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.” ⁵ For ^[a]when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, ⁶ through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. ⁷ But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

Peter tells us that one of the ways men would justify their rejection of God and His word would be in their rejection of creation and the flood.  I like the way this is expressed in this passage: it escapes their notice...  He even hints at the naturalistic belief that everything "has continued just as has from the beginning"...the doctrine of uniformitarianism.

Well, the evidence is everywhere and people deny it and explain it away.  They choose to be ignorant.  Why?  If someone admits that God judged the world once, then you have to admit that He could do it again.  People don't want to think about that, or even consider it, so they choose not to believe that the flood is a historical event.  It is similar to the rejection of the existence of God: if God exists, and if He is the God of the Bible, then I have to admit that He has standards I must live by.  And some don't want to accept the consequences of believing in God, so they reject His existence.

The New Testament affirms the truth of the flood:

Matthew 24:37-39
³⁷ For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. ³⁸ For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, ³⁹ and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. 

Luke 17:26-27
 ²⁶ And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: ²⁷ they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

1 Peter 3:20
²⁰ who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.

2 Peter 2:5
⁵ and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;

Hebrews 11:7
⁷ By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

Timetable of the flood: Genesis 7-8

In the 600th year of Noah:

• 2nd month 17th day: Floodgates of the sky opened, fountains of the great deep ruptured, rain began.
• It rained for 40 days and 40 nights, then the floodgates of the sky and the fountains of the great deep were closed, a great wind blew, water prevails on the earth for 150 days then began to subside.
• 7th month 17th day: Ark rested on a mountain.
• 10th month 1st day: Surrounding mountaintops become visible.

In the 601st year of Noah:

• 1st month 1st day: Waters are dried up.
• 2nd month 27th day: Left the ark.

Every living thing perished that was on the land. They had spent just over a year in the ark.