a world wide flood never occurred, a mis-translation of the word in genesis means area of land not the entire earth. Christians have been so insistent on saying it was a global flood for so long that they can't admit they were wrong because then it would seem like the whole Bible is wrong.
I was brought up believing in a global flood but upon research it's easy to disprove it didn't, you don't even need to look at geological evidence. Much of this information taken from the book
"The Genesis Flood" written by Whitcomb and Morris?
Feedback: Timeline for the Flood - Answers in Genesis
according to global flood christians the flood was in 2348 BC yet you end up with a serious problem there because cultures that already existed at that time and who kept records like the chinese and other ancient cultures neither record a global flood and were most importantly not wiped out either as civilizations but continued right through that time period to the present.
Teaching the global flood probably has been one of the things that has turned millions away from believing Christianity. Although the intention of christians to teach the word of God is infallible might have good intentions it would be less harmful to admit we might have misunderstood a word that is from a language thousands of years old that no one speaks anymore, then to continue to teach something wrong because we have been doing it for long and cause it to be a stumbling block for unbelievers
To set the stage for this discussion, I would like to first review some of the statements in Genesis regarding the scope and duration of the flood. While I am no scientist, I do have some understanding of the biblical text.
Gen. 7:19-20 says,
“The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. The water prevailed fifteen cubits (22 ft)
higher, and the mountains were covered.”
The only standard of measurement we have for the comparing the depth of the water is
“all the high mountains under all the heavens.” Now, only one of these expressions would be sufficient to convey the absolute universality of the flood -
“all the high mountains.” However, since the therm “all” is known to be used in the relative sense, any possible ambiguity is removed by the phrase
“under all the heavens.” The reason for the 22 ft of water covering the highest mountains would have certainly been sufficient to adjust for the drought of the fully loaded ark. The height of the ark was thirty cubits according to
Gen. 6:15, so the 15 cubits, or 22 ft in
Gen 7:20 must certainly refer to drought of the ark. In other words the ark sank to a depth of 22 ft while it was afloat.
Now, let's look at the duration of the flood. In chapters 7 and 8 we learn that the flood lasted 371 days. This would certainly be consistent with the idea of a universal flood. While many Christian scholars may debate the actual depth of the flood, there can be no question of its duration when one factors the rate of evaporation. It would seem that the waters reached their maximum height in the first 40 days and according to 8:24, that maximum height was maintained for an additional 110 days before beginning to subside.
Now, to the question of where all of this water came from and where did it go?
In
Gen. 1, we are told that the earth was already created in a state of deluge. Water covered the entire surface of the planet at that time, although we are not told to what depth. Then, it says that God separated the waters. Now, you and I both know that mater does not just disappear. Mater is not destroyed, it only changes form. So where did these waters go during this separation? In verses 6-8, it says that God separated the waters into two different groups. Notice, even after he separated the waters and assigned a large portion of that water to the heavens or the firmament (this is what many scholars regard as the canopy of waters that shrouded the earth and we can discuss the implications of this further if you like), the surface of the earth was still covered in water. Then, on the third day, he separated the terrestrial waters into seas and
then the dry land appeared. So, even if one discounted the waters of the firmament there was still sufficient water
on the earth to cover all the dry ground and this does not even seem to refer to the massive subterranean deposits of water.
During the flood, God simply reverses the process. But this time, he not only opens the firmament to re-deposit all of that water back on the earth, but he also breaks open the “fountains of the deep” or the subterranean waters as well. Such geological upheavals that would be required to bring all of this water to the surface would also result in a dramatic rise of the sea floors spilling the oceans out over the face of the earth as well.
After the flood, God restores this process of water separation through two methods. One method was the evaporation process that was aided by the use of the "wind God caused to pass over the earth." The other process was drainage as the waters of the subterranean chambers drained back into their reservoirs.
Is this sufficient to answer your first question or would you like me to elaborate further on this point?
Just a side point: If the surface of the earth were completely smooth, it is estimated that there is enough water ON the earth to cover the surface of the earth to a depth of two feet. (I looked for this statistic in all of my old notes but could not find it nor could I remember its source).
