This is an article I’ve rewritten for clarity. I tend to write in a very formal style by nature, which can be off-putting, so I’ve revised it for better readability.
I've heard it said that the Bible is inerrant, but I've also heard people try to explain the story of Noah's Ark as if it were a global flood. And, well, that just doesn't work. It's one of those things that, if you think about it for even a few minutes, makes you realize that something's not quite right with the way it's usually presented.
See, the story talks about all the high hills under the whole heaven being covered with water. Now, I'm no scientist, but I'm pretty sure there's not enough water on this planet, even if you melted all the ice and condensed all the water vapor in the atmosphere, to cover every mountain peak. It's just physically impossible. And it's not like the water could have come from some other planet, because where would it have gone afterwards? It couldn't have just vanished. So, the traditional explanation already has a major problem.
And then there's the whole issue of the animals. Two of every kind, or even seven pairs of some? Seriously? Has anyone actually tried to calculate how many animals that would be? And how much space they'd take up? And how much food they'd need for over a year? And how Noah and his family would have managed to collect them all, from all over the planet? It's simply impractical, if not downright impossible. And don't even get me started on the waste disposal problem. The logistics alone make the whole global flood idea collapse under its own weight.
But it gets worse. If you think about genetics, a global flood would have created a massive bottleneck, reducing every species down to just a few individuals. We should see evidence of that in the genetic record, a drastic reduction in genetic diversity. And we just… don't. For most species, the genetic evidence points to much larger populations throughout their history, not a sudden near-extinction event.
And the geological evidence? Forget about it. A global flood that covered all the mountains would have left behind unmistakable signs: massive erosion, huge sediment deposits, a complete reshuffling of the fossil record. We'd see a clear geological layer, worldwide, marking this catastrophic event. But we don't. Geologists have been studying the Earth's strata for centuries, and they've found absolutely no evidence of a global flood. They've found evidence of local floods, sure, but nothing on the scale described in Genesis.
And what about the plants? How would plants, especially those that need specific soil conditions or climates, survive being submerged under saltwater for months? Did Noah have a giant greenhouse on the Ark, too? And after the flood, how did all the animals get back to their original habitats? Did the kangaroos hop all the way back to Australia? Did the sloths slowly make their way back to South America? It just doesn't make sense.
Now, some people try to get around these problems by saying, "Well, it was a miracle! God just made it happen!" But that's a cop-out. It's basically saying, "I don't have a good explanation, so I'll just invoke magic." And if you're going to invoke magic, why not just say God magically made everyone think there was a flood, when there really wasn't? That would require far less magic.
And, speaking of water, there's the freshwater fish. If the flood was global, and the waters that covered the earth came from the "fountains of the great deep" and the "windows of heaven," that would almost certainly mean the floodwaters were saltwater. But saltwater is lethal to freshwater fish. So, unless God performed another miracle to keep all the freshwater fish alive (a miracle that, again, isn't mentioned in the text), they'd all be dead. And yet, we have freshwater fish today.
So, what's the alternative? Well, a local flood. A really, really big flood, sure, but a local one. The story is likely describing a catastrophic flood in Mesopotamia, the "land between the rivers" (the Tigris and Euphrates). This area is prone to flooding, and there's even geological evidence of major floods in the past. The language of "all flesh" and "under the whole heaven" is just hyperbole, the way people naturally talk when they're describing something huge and devastating. It's like saying, "The whole town was destroyed by the fire." Does that mean every single building burned to the ground? Not necessarily. It means the destruction was widespread and catastrophic for that town.
The Ark, then, wouldn't have needed to be some impossibly large wooden ship. It could have been a large reed raft, something that people in that region actually built. And Noah wouldn't have needed to collect animals from all over the world, just the local animals, the ones he needed for survival.
And the "fountains of the great deep" and the "windows of heaven"? That's probably just figurative language for a really, really big storm, maybe combined with some tectonic activity, an earthquake that caused the land to sink and the sea to rush in. We don't know the exact details, but we don't need to invoke a global, physics-defying miracle to explain it.
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