The Flood narrative merits a new look, particularly as it is viewed by so many people today as a not very credible story. We give it a fresh examination.
Before the Flood
First of all we glance at the conditions at the time of Adam: “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so” (Gen. 1:29,30). These conditions, and the ordinance of 2:15 “to dress it and to keep it”, did not involve hard work, but rather a satisfying occupation calculated to fulfil the potential of the man in his daily interests, and, with Eve, to enjoy a life of communion with the Elohim, with whom they had a relationship. This is a picture of harmony and peace, together with the promise of greater things to come.
We know, however, that the sequel was disaster through disobedience and lack of faith. In taking account of this fact we note the sentence on Adam in particular: “cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread . . . “(3:17-19). This was calamity indeed for Adam. Gone was the peace and tranquillity of a life of communion with the Elohim. They now withdrew, and left Adam to face the consequences of his act of sin.
“Sorrow” is a word prominent in the sentence both of the man and the woman, hinting, by its use, at the changed nature of their lives, and the introduction of an element in their experience which was new to them, one which would bring not only distress but also discipline. To accompany that situation there was a compelling need to cultivate the ground to encourage it to produce food. This was a new introduction through the curse on the ground, and was introduced in order to balance out the changed nature of their existence. We recognise, of course, that the curse was a burden placed on man, not simply as a punitive measure, but in order to correct the evil ways which man would tend to adopt in congenial circumstances.
This, then, gives us the background to the conditions which prevailed in the antediluvian period up to the days of Noah. This period extended to 1,656 years, a long time by any standards—longer than the Mosaic era. When we come to Noah’s day we find a grim situation prevailing: “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth . . . for all flesh had corrupted His way upon the earth” (6:5,12). With the corruption came also violence (v. 11). Clearly, the initial curse on the ground pronounced by God was not of great severity.
Thus man was able to indulge in his evil pursuits to such a degree as to warrant unredeemable destruction by the end of the 1,600 years. Perhaps we can imagine the agonizing of the faithful line of Seth down to Noah’s day, as they, in dwindling numbers, resisted the influence of the lawless multitude around them. Genesis 6 gives the sad picture, brightened only by faithful Noah, who found grace in God’s sight. So, when Noah was 600 years old, God took action, and the Flood came and destroyed all, leaving only Noah and his family alive, together with the animals that were in the ark.
Great changes
What took place on that occasion? It is quite evident that great changes took place. Just as in the case of Adam the curse upon the ground brought a change of circumstances which he inherited from that time onward, so, following the Flood, the descendants of Noah inherited a further change, a curse of greater severity than that which had prevailed in earlier times. We must look, therefore, for other matters affecting living conditions, beyond that of a simple deluge of water which flooded the ground.
The first indication is found in Genesis 7:10-12: “the waters of the flood were upon the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights”. This short description reveals nothing short of a cosmic upheaval. Something happened which upset the whole physical structure which had hitherto existed.
We notice that first “the fountains of the great deep (were) broken up”, then “the windows of heaven were opened”. It seems that it is no accident that the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep is put first. This, of course, refers to the seas; and whatever happened to the seas was instrumental in affecting the atmospheric equilibrium. Thus “the windows of heaven” were opened, and the waters that were above the firmament were emptied upon the earth. In all this turmoil God cared for Noah and his family, who were safe in the ark. He preserved them through the violence of these physical forces which were unleashed at this time, the earth trembling under the impact. In this way Adam’s world perished.
In Genesis 8:21 we see that this was a unique event which was not to be repeated (cf. Ps. 104:69; Gen. 9:7-15). These words really mean that God- made a significant modification to the physical conditions at the time of the Flood which He is not to repeat: “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake” (in other words, no further than this that I have now done, that is, to any greater degree. There is no tautology here).
Take a map of the Middle East. The familiar topography is as we have it at present. Looking at Genesis 2, we have physical features described for us in verses 10-14. Now the commentators dismiss the idea that (as Josephus says) the River Nile drained into the Persian Gulf as indicated in this passage. According to the map the thing is impossible. But was it always like this?
We take note of one feature which could be significant. We have the existence of the Great Rift shown on the map. This remains the greatest scar on the surface of the globe. It can be traced from the Jordan Valley through the Red Sea to Central Africa. We can see the possibility that the Great Rift was not in existence at the time of Genesis 2. Thus the Nile (Gihon) could have flowed from Ethiopia (Cush) to the confluence with the other great rivers emptying into the Persian Gulf. The evidence is there in Egypt, where an ancient river bed exists leading east to the Red Sea. Did the Great Rift therefore occur at the time of the Flood?
Tilt in the earth’s axis
What we are now going to suggest would answer certain questions relating to the Flood and its aftermath. It would give a reason for the rupture of the earth’s surface which forms the Great Rift, caused at the time when the great surge of the ocean moved over the land. We make a note of Genesis 8:22: “While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease”. See diagram A.
Notice that the path of the earth, though an ellipse, is, in the purpose of God for man, almost circular. Seasons therefore do not depend on the variation in the distance of the earth from the sun. Diagram B shows a change. Diagram A shows no seasonal variations, while diagram B reveals seasonal variations. The difference between A and B explains the seasonal changes as shown. To quote Whittaker’s Almanac: “the obliquity of the ecliptic is 23 degrees”. This means that the tilt of the earth’s axis in relation to the path of its course round the sun is 23 degrees, and it is this, as we know, which provides us with the seasons.
What we are suggesting is this: that God, at the time of the Flood, brought about the change in the angle of tilt in the earth’s rotation to 23 degrees to the ecliptic. Such a dramatic change would explain the circumstances which we observe in the account of the Genesis Flood. The bursting of the seas from their basins onto the land would be one effect (the fountains of the great deep were broken up). Another effect would be to upset the atmospheric equilibrium, causing the shedding of the suspended water in the form of a deluge.1
The land surface, also under strain, would tend to crack, and in this case form the Great Rift, causing the Nile to shift its course northwards into the Mediterranean Sea, and allowing water to flow into the Red Sea basin. Judging by the Genesis account, the degree of tilt of the axis was gradual, the increasing effects covering a period of forty days (Gen. 7:17), whereas the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days (v. 24), decreasing over the next seven months to enable Noah to leave the ark (8:5,13).
Twenty-three degrees of tilt could therefore have taken forty days to accomplish; the rate of movement would be about half a degree every twenty-four hours. What effects would develop worldwide we do not know as we have no Scriptural guidance. But to the question “Was the Flood local or universal?” we can say that the whole earth was affected and has so remained ever since.
Additional curse
“While the earth remaineth”, declared God, “seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease”. The original conditions (antediluvian) would have been an even weather pattern, without any pronounced seasons or temperature variations.
Without these changes it would have been possible to sow and reap at all times of the year, so that the curse on the ground would not have been so pronounced as after the Deluge, when summer and winter prevailed and thus limited the fertility of the ground. (Even today, in the tropics, the earth remains very fertile; the climate is still governed by seasons, but these are more in the nature of rainy and dry seasons which govern production. Without due care there is more danger of desert regions developing in warmer climates.) The days and nights, which had been of equal length, began to vary according to season and degree of latitude. All these changes now introduced would not cease; thus the physical conditions of Adam’s world would never return.
The alteration of the inclination of the earth’s axis provided the essence of the additional curse upon the ground, in the furtherance of God’s design to contain the tendency of man to corrupt God’s way upon the earth. Whilst previously the conditions provided a continuous yield of harvest month by month because of lack of seasonal change, now it was to be limited to seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter. This clearly indicates a reduction of the yield of the fruits of the earth, with one portion of the year unproductive, in contrast to conditions before the Flood.
This reduction had the further effect which is disclosed in Genesis 9:3: “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things”. We have also the first pronouncement of the prohibition of eating the blood with the flesh (v. 4). These provisions in the covenant with Noah envisage the need henceforth to provide for man’s food in addition to the supply of the herb of the field, and flesh was to be available for man as his need arose. Why did God include flesh for food?
The supplement was foreseen as necessary in the modified conditions now imposed on nature for man’s sake at the time of the Flood. The evidence that man was vegetarian before the Flood is shown in Genesis 1:29; 2:16; and 3:18. Now Genesis 9:3,4 shows a change. In addition we have the new prohibition against eating the blood. Why was it so late in time, if flesh had been part of the diet before the Flood?
Momentous events for the future
In widening our view of the prophetic picture we recall the momentous events prophesied for the future. The cleaving of the Mount of Olives is referred to in Zechariah 14:4. What an upheaval that will be! But beyond that there must be far-reaching consequences on the topography of the region. The picture revealed is quite awesome: “the land shall be turned as a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem: and it shall be lifted up” (v. 10). Here is not a simple earthquake, in the sense of earth tremors which can cause so much damage, but an upheaval in which the land will be bodily lifted up in elevation. All this is in preparation for the Divine Kingdom in the Holy Land.
There would appear to be a parallel event referred to in Isaiah 11:15: the destruction of the tongue of the Egyptian sea, and the smiting of the river and its seven streams, thus creating a clear way to the Holy Land. This must involve the Great Rift once more, and the diversion of the River Nile to its old course eastwards to the Red Sea. Also in this area there will be the cleaving of a seaway from the Mediterranean Sea to Jerusalem. We see how potent the words of Jesus are: “as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man” (Lk. 17:26). Morally and physically the words are applicable.
We live in the final stages of the times of the Gentiles. We can look back and see the effects, through the ages of the Genesis Flood, in the way the earth has reacted to the weight of the additional curse imposed on the land. The areas of desert are a witness to this, and illustrate God’s determination not to increase the curse any further (“any more”) for man’s sake, for in doing so He would have marred His creation beyond hope.
Instead, in the further combat against sin, He brought about the confusion of language (Gen. 11), thus creating nations and nationalism. This rivalry and hostility between the nations was to perform God’s will in controlling sin. As Brother Thomas rightly pointed out, warfare is Divinely ordained to control the evil tendency of men and nations to further-corruption.
Under the control of the Lord Jesus in the new age to come there will be conditions established which will permit the lifting of some of the effects of the curse on the ground, when “the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose”; and in Revelation 22:2 we read that “on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month . . . “(cf. Amos 9:13; Ezek. 47:12).
Since man was created upon the earth there has been nothing like the convulsion which came upon the earth at the Flood. It was a major crisis in the earth’s history. We have tried to show how the results which God brought about could have been achieved by an act of Divine power altering the position of the earth’s axis, in the way we have suggested, on that historic occasion.
References
- Atmospheric changes can be caused by magnetic variations. Such magnetic changes could have caused the earth’s rotational change, under God’s hand. A spinning earth generates magnetic fields, as do all heavenly bodies which rotate. Gravity would seem to be, in some way, related to these unseen forces. Clouds possess an electrical charge and are affected by electrical changes in the atmosphere: we see evidence of this in thunderstorms.
A Perspective on how Archaeology can help us understand the Bible