Chapter 10
Was the Flood global?
• Does it matter?
• Does the Bible say that Noah’s Flood covered the whole
earth?
• Is there any evidence outside the Bible for such a Flood?
M
ANY Christians today claim that the Flood of Noah’s time
was only a local flood. They claim it was confined to
somewhere around the Mesopotamian region and never
really covered the whole earth. The discovery of a layer of mud by
archaeologists in the Middle East and more recently the finding of
evidence for a local flood in the Black Sea have both been claimed as
evidence for a (local) biblical flood.
People generally want a local flood because they have accepted the
widely believed evolutionary history of the Earth, which interprets the
fossils under our feet as the history of the sequential appearance of life
over eons of time.
Scientists once understood the fossils (which are buried in water-
carried sediments of mud and sand) to be mostly the result of the great
Flood. Those who now accept the evolutionary billions of years of gradual
accumulation of fossils have, in their way of thinking, explained away
the evidence for the Flood—hence their belief in a local flood, or none
at all. If they would think from a biblical perspective, they would see
the abundant evidence for the Flood. As someone quipped, “I wouldn’t
have seen it if I hadn’t believed it.”
Those who accept the eons of time with its fossil accumulation also,
perhaps unwittingly, rob the Fall of its serious consequences. They put
the fossils, which testify of disease, suffering, and death before mankind
appeared, before Adam and Eve sinned and brought death and suffering
~ 149 ~
150 ~ Chapter 10
into the world. In doing this they also undermine the meaning of the death
and Resurrection of Christ. Such a scenario also robs God’s description
of His finished creation as ‘very good’ of all meaning (see Chapter 2).
Some preachers will say they believe in a ‘universal’ or ‘worldwide’
flood, but really they do not believe that the Flood covered the whole
earth. They side-step the clear teaching of the Bible, while giving the
appearance of believing it, by cleverly redefining words. They mean
‘universal’ and ‘worldwide’ only in terms of an imagined limited extent
of human habitation at the time. They imagine that people lived only,
say, in a valley in Mesopotamia and so the flood could kill all the people
without being global in extent.
Biblical evidence for the global Flood
The local flood idea is totally inconsistent with the Bible, as the following
points demonstrate:
The need for the Ark
If the Flood were local, why did Noah have to build an Ark? He
could have walked to the other side of the mountains and escaped.
Travelling just 20 km per day, Noah and his family could have travelled
over 3,000 km in six months. God could have simply warned Noah to
flee, as He did for Lot in Sodom.
The size of the Ark
If the Flood were local, why was the Ark big enough to hold all
the different kinds of land vertebrate animals in the world? If only
Mesopotamian animals were aboard, or only domestic animals, the Ark
could have been much smaller.1
The size of the Ark makes sense only if the Flood were global.
1. See Chapter 13.
Was the Flood global? ~ 151
The need for animals to be on the Ark
If the Flood were local, why did God send the animals to the Ark to
escape death? There would have been other animals to reproduce those
kinds even if they had all died in the local area. Or He could have sent
them to a non-flooded region.
The need for birds to be on the Ark
If the Flood were local, why would birds have been sent on board? These
could simply have winged across to far-distant higher ground. Birds can
fly several hundred kilometres in one day.
The judgment was universal.
If the Flood were local, people who did not happen to be living in the
vicinity would not have been affected by it. They would have escaped
God’s judgment on sin. It boggles the mind to believe that, after all those
centuries since creation, no one had migrated to other parts—or that people
living on the periphery of such a local flood would not have moved to the
adjoining high ground rather than be drowned. Jesus stated that the Flood
killed everyone not on the Ark (Matt. 24:37–39).
Of course those who want to believe in a local flood generally say that
the world is old and that people were here for many tens of thousands of
years before the Flood. If this were the case, it is inconceivable that all the
people could have fitted in a localized valley in Mesopotamia, for example,
or that they had not migrated further afield as the population grew.
The Flood was a type of the judgment to come.
In 2 Peter 3, the coming universal judgment by fire is likened to the
judgment by water of Noah’s Flood: the world that then existed was
deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens
and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day
of judgment and destruction of the ungodly (verses 6 & 7).
The waters were above the mountains.
If the Flood were local, how could the waters rise to 15 cubits (8 metres)
above the mountains (Gen. 7:20)? Water seeks its own level. It could
not rise to cover the local mountains while leaving the rest of the world
untouched.2
2. Mt Everest has marine fossils at its peak. There is enough water in the oceans so that if all
the surface features of the earth were evened out, including the ocean basins, water would
cover the earth to a depth of 2.7 km. This is not enough to cover mountains the height of
Everest now, but it shows that the pre-Flood mountains could have been quite high and
still been covered. See Chapter 11 for more details about how this could have occurred.
152 ~ Chapter 10
The duration of the Flood
Noah and company were on the
Ark for one year and 10 days
(Gen. 7:11, 8:14)—surely an
excessive amount of time for
any local flood? It was more
than seven months before the
tops of any mountains became
visible. How could they drift
around in a local flood for
that long without seeing any Floodwater entering the roads of Chennai,
India. If Noah’s Flood was only local, what
mountains? would God’s promise not to send a flood
again mean?
God’s promise broken?
If the Flood were local, God would have repeatedly broken His promise
never to send such a Flood again. There have been huge ‘local’ floods
in recent times: in Bangladesh, for example, where 80% of that country
has been inundated, or in Europe in 2002.
All people are descendants of Noah and his family.
The genealogies of Adam (Gen. 4:17–26, 5:1–31) and Noah (Gen. 10:1–
32) are exclusive—they tell us that all the pre-Flood people came from
Adam and all the post-Flood people came from Noah. The descendants
of Noah were all living together at Babel and refusing to “fill the earth”,
as they had been commanded (Gen. 9:1). So God confused their one
language into many and scattered them (Gen. 11:1–9).
There is striking evidence that all peoples on Earth have come
from Noah, found in the Flood stories from many cultures around the
world—North and South America, South Sea Islands, Australia, Papua
New Guinea, Japan, China, India, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa.
Hundreds of such stories have been gathered.3 The stories closest to
the area of dispersion from Babel are nearest in detail to the biblical
account—for example, the Gilgamesh epic.
3. Frazer, J.G., Folk-lore in the Old Testament: studies in comparative religion, Vol. 1,
Macmillan, UK, pp. 105–361, 1918.
Was the Flood global? ~ 153
The Hebrew terminology of Genesis 6–94
• “The earth” (Heb. erets) is used 46 times in the Flood account in
Genesis 6–9, as well as in Genesis 1. The explicit link to the big picture
of creation, especially in Genesis 6:6–7, clearly implies a universal
Flood. Furthermore, the judgment of God is pronounced not just on
all flesh, but on the earth:
“And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh has come before me,
for the earth is filled with violence through them. And, behold, I will
destroy them with the earth.” (Gen. 6:13).
• “Upon the face of all the earth” (Gen. 7:3, 8:9) clearly connects with
the same phrase in the creation account where Adam and Eve are
given the plants on Earth to eat (Gen. 1:29). Clearly, in God’s decree
the mandate is universal—the whole Earth is their domain. God uses
the phrase in Genesis also of the dispersal of people at the Tower of
Babel (Gen. 11:8–9)—again, the context is the whole land surface
of the globe. The exact phrase is used nowhere else in Genesis.
• “Face of the ground”, used five times in the Flood account, also
connects back to the universal context of creation (Gen. 2:6), again
emphasizing the universality of the Flood.
• “All flesh” (Heb. kol-basar) is used 12 times in the Flood account and
nowhere else in Genesis. God said He would destroy “all flesh”, apart
from those on the Ark (Gen. 6:13,17),5 and He did (Gen. 7:21–22). In
the context of the Flood, ‘all flesh’ clearly includes all nostril-breathing
land animals as well as mankind—see Genesis 7:21–23. ‘All flesh’
could not have been confined to a Mesopotamian valley.
• “Every living thing” (Heb. kol chai) is again used in the Flood
account (Gen. 6:19, 8:1,17) and in the creation account (Gen. 1:28).
In the creation account the phrase is used in the context of Adam and
Eve’s dominion over the animals. God said (Gen. 7:4) that He would
destroy “every living thing” He had made and this happened—only
Noah and those with him on the Ark survived (Gen. 7:23).
• “Under the whole heaven” (Gen. 7:19) is used six times outside of
the Flood account in the Old Testament, and always with a universal
meaning (Deut. 2:25, 4:19, Job 28:24, 37:3, 41:11, Dan. 9:12). For
4. Davidson, R.M., Biblical evidence for the universality of the Genesis Flood, Origins
22(2):58–73, 1995; [Link]/origins-22058.
5. Some translations wrongly render ‘all flesh’ in Gen. 6:13 as ‘all people’ (e.g. NIV, whereas
KJV and NASB are correct). This is clearly not the meaning of ‘all flesh’, as revealed by
its use in Gen. 7:21 (where the NIV renders ‘all flesh’ correctly as ‘every living thing’).
154 ~ Chapter 10
example, “Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine”, said the
Lord (Job 41:11).
• “All the fountains of the great deep.” The fountains of the great
deep are mentioned only in the Flood account (Gen. 7:11, 8:2) and
Proverbs 8:28. ‘The deep’ (Heb. tehom) relates back to creation (Gen.
1:2) where it refers to the one ocean covering the whole world before
the land was formed. And it was not just “the fountains of the great
deep” but “all the fountains of the great deep” which broke open.
• A special Hebrew word was reserved for the Flood or Deluge:
Mabbul. In every one of the 13 occasions this word is used, it refers
to Noah’s Flood. Its one use outside of Genesis, Psalm 29:10, refers
to the universal sovereignty of God in presiding over the Deluge.
The New Testament also has a special word reserved for the Flood,
cataclysmos, from which we derive our English word ‘cataclysm’.
The decrees in Genesis 9 parallel those in Genesis 1.
In Genesis 9:1 God gives man the exact same commission as in Genesis
1:28—“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth”. He also gives man
dominion over “every beast of the earth” (Gen. 9:2, cf. 1:28) and man is
instructed as to what he can and cannot eat (Gen. 9:4–5), which parallels
Genesis 1:29–30. These decrees in Genesis 1 are universal in extent, and
clearly they are also here, after the Flood. If Adam and his descendants
were to rule the whole earth, so were Noah and his descendants. If ‘earth’
in Genesis 9:1 is the whole earth, as all would agree it is, then surely
it is also the whole earth in the context of the Flood in Genesis 8:13!6
The New Testament speaks of the Flood as global
New Testament passages which speak of the Flood use universal
language: “the flood came and took them all away” (Jesus, Matt. 24:39);
“the flood came and destroyed them all” (Jesus, in Luke 17:27); “did
not spare the ancient world [Greek: kosmos], but preserved Noah, a
preacher of righteousness, and seven others, bringing in the flood upon
the world of the ungodly” (2 Pet. 2:5); “a few, that is eight people, were
saved through the water” (1 Pet. 3:20); Noah “condemned the world”
through his faith in God (Heb. 11:7); “the world that then was, being
flooded by water, perished” (2 Pet. 3:6). All these statements presuppose
a global Flood, not some localized event.
6. Batten, D., Adam and Noah: two beginnings, Creation 34(1):12–14, 2011; [Link]/
adam-and-noah.
Was the Flood global? ~ 155
Answers to objections to a global Flood
Objection 1: ‘All’ does not always mean ‘all’7
Some have argued that since ‘all’ does not always mean ‘each and every’
(e.g. Mark 1:5) the use of ‘all’ in the Flood account does not necessarily
mean the Flood was universal. That is, they claim that this use of ‘all’
allows for a local flood.
However, the meaning of a word is decided by the context. From the
context of ‘all’ in Luke 2:1, for example, we can see that ‘all the world’
meant all the Roman Empire. So, it is the context that tells us that ‘all’
here does not mean every bit of the whole land surface of the globe.
Similarly, to determine the meaning of ‘all’ in Genesis 6–9, we
must consider the context, not just transfer the inferred meaning from
somewhere else.
The word ‘all’ (Heb. kol) is used 72 times in the 85 verses of Genesis
6–9, 21% of all the times it is used in all 50 chapters of Genesis.
In Genesis 7:19 we read that “all (Heb. kol) the high mountains
under all (Heb. kol) the heavens were covered”. Note the double use of
‘all’. In Hebrew this gives emphasis so as to eliminate any possibility of
ambiguity.7 This could be accurately translated as “all the high mountains
under the entire heavens”, to reflect the emphasis in the Hebrew. Leupold,
in his authoritative commentary on Genesis, said of this, “… the text
disposes of the question of the universality of the Flood.”8
Objection 2: The post-Flood geography is the same as the
pre-Flood
Because the Tigris and Euphrates rivers were mentioned in the description
of the Garden of Eden, and we have the Tigris and Euphrates rivers now,
some have argued that the Flood could not have altered the topography
of the world, and therefore it must have been local.9
However, there are major differences in the topography described
for the Garden of Eden and the world now. There was one river flowing
from Eden which separated into four rivers (Gen. 2:10–14), two of which
7. For a full treatment, see Kruger, M., Genesis 6–9: Does ‘all’ always mean all? Journal of
Creation 10(2):214–218, 1996; [Link]/all.
8. Leupold, H.C., Exposition of Genesis, Volume 1, Baker Book House, US, pp. 301–302,
1942.
9. For example, Young, D.A., Creation and the Flood: an alternative to Flood geology and
theistic evolution, Baker Book House, US, p. 210, 1997. Sadly, Dr Young has drifted
more and more towards full-blown theistic evolution since he wrote this book, wherein
he compromised the Bible by advocating ‘progressive creationist’ views.
156 ~ Chapter 10
were called the Tigris and the Euphrates. So the rivers had a common
source before the Flood, which is very different from today. The other
two rivers were the Pishon and the Gihon. The Pishon is not mentioned
post-Flood and Gihon is used of the locality of a spring near Jerusalem
in the times of Kings David, Solomon, and Hezekiah.10
The post-Flood world is not the same as the pre-Flood world. Someone
may ask, ‘Then why do we have a Tigris and Euphrates today?’ Answer:
the same reason there is a Liverpool and Newcastle in Australia; and a
London, Oxford, and Cambridge in North America, although they were
originally place names in England. Features in the post-Flood world were
given names familiar to those who survived the Flood.
Objection 3: There is no evidence for such a Flood in the
geologic record
What evidence would one expect from a global watery cataclysm that
drowned the animals, birds, and people not on the Ark? All around the
world, in rock layer after rock layer, we find billions of dead things
that have been buried in water-carried mud and sand. Their state of
preservation frequently tells of rapid burial and fossilization, just like
one would expect in such a flood.
There is abundant evidence that many of the rock strata were laid
down quickly, one after the other, without significant time breaks
between them. Preservation of animal tracks, ripple marks, and even
raindrop marks testifies to rapid covering of these features to enable their
preservation. Polystrate fossils (ones which traverse many strata) speak
of very quick deposition of the strata. The scarcity of erosion, soil
formation, animal burrows, and roots between layers also shows they
must have been deposited in quick succession. The radical deformation
of thick layers of sediment without evidence of cracking or melting also
shows how all the layers must have been still soft when they were bent.
Fossil ‘graveyards’ around the
world, where the bones of many
animals were washed together,
buried and fossilized, are
evidence for a watery cataclysm
like the Flood.
10. The Gihon spring of 1 Kings 1:33, 38, 45, and 2 Chron. 32:30, 33:14 clearly has nothing
to do with the Tigris–Euphrates river system of today, or the four-way split river system
described in Eden.
Was the Flood global? ~ 157
Dykes (walls) and pipes (cylinders) of sandstone which connect with
the same material many layers beneath show that the layers beneath
must have been still soft, and contained much water. That the sandstone
could be squeezed up through cracks above to form the ‘clastic’ dykes
and pipes, again shows rapid deposition of many strata.
The worldwide distribution of many geological features and rock
types is also consistent with a global Flood. The Morrison Formation is
a layer of sedimentary rock that extends from Texas to Canada, clearly
showing the fallacy of the still-popular belief that ‘the present is the key
to the past’—there are no processes occurring on Earth today that are
laying down such large areas of sedimentary layers. In reality, God’s
revelation about the past is the key to understanding the present.
The limited geographic extent of unconformities (clear breaks in
the sequence of deposition with different tilting of layers, etc.) is also
consistent with the reality of the global Flood. And there are many other
evidences for the Flood.11,12
The problem is not the evidence but the mindset of those looking at
the evidence. One geologist testified how he never saw any evidence
for the Flood—until, as a Christian, he was convinced from the Bible
that the Flood must have been a global cataclysm. Now he sees the
evidence everywhere. The Bible talks about people being corrupted in
their thinking after turning their backs on God (Romans 1:18ff.) and
of people being so spiritually blind that they cannot see the obvious
(Acts 28:25–27).
Photo by Joachim Scheven
Preservation of ripple marks (left) requires rapid burial, as in the Flood (lower Triassic
rock, England). Folding of sedimentary rock without cracking or heating (right), such as
at Eastern Beach, Auckland, New Zealand, suggests the folding occurred before the sand
and mud had time to turn into stone, consistent with rapid deposition during the Flood
(note people for scale).
11. Morris, J.D., The Young Earth (revised and expanded), Master Books, US, 2007; creation.
com/young-earth.
12. Austin, S. (Ed.), Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe, Institute for Creation Research,
US, 1994; [Link]/monument.
158 ~ Chapter 10
Conclusion
A universal worldwide, globe-covering Flood is clearly taught by the
Bible. The only reasons for thinking the Flood was otherwise come from
outside the Bible. When we use the framework provided by the Bible
we find that the physical evidence from the rocks and fossils beautifully
fits what the Bible says.13
Furthermore, the realization of the reality of God’s judgment by
the Flood in the past should warn us of the reality of the judgment to
come—a judgment by fire—and stimulate us to be ready for that judgment
(2 Peter 3:3–13). Those who are not ‘in Christ’ will suffer the wrath of
God (John 3:36).
13. See Chapters 11–15 for other questions about the Flood and Noah’s Ark.
