It Is Not Probable That the Genesis Flood Narrative Actually Occurred

Thank you for your position. You have many question, rightly so. But I have answers for each and every question. Much scientific work has been done on each point. 1) Too many animals? The main question is "how did Noah fit all the animals in the ark?" The problem is that you misinterpret what the bible says. When referring to animal groups and such, it uses the word "Kind". The word "Kind" is different than the word "Species". The definition that the bible uses when it uses "Kind" means in scientific terms "Family", not "Species" (The original Hebrew text uses "min" which is translated to "kind", but in terms of classification, means "Family".) Genesis 6:18"20 "18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark"you and your sons and your wife and your sons" wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive." When understanding what the Bible says, and when we count the total number of "Family" classifications, we come to a number of about 1000 land and bird groups in the "Family" classification. This includes every bird and land animal. The number may vary some, but this requires at least 2000 animals be on the ark! That is plenty of room for every animal and bird that would be required. The ark would be able to easily support all of the animals comfortably. 2) Supporting the animals? With only about a few thousand animals, supplying the food would be no problem. Removing waste would not be a problem either. Especially if Noah made preparations for waste disposal. 3) How well does the ark float? There is a very basic system of ship building that Noah could have easily used, which consisted of a 3 prong system (triangles are the sturdiest kind of structure know in geometry). Also, Noah could have easily hired workers to help him and had help from others. With multiple people (who lived hundreds of years according to the Bible), their combined lifetime experience would easily allow Noah to build an ark. 4) Where did the flood come from? Genesis 7:11 "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month--on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened." Now this shows where all the water came from. The "springs of the great deep" means that there was an underground water system, and that it "burst forth". Some kind of an underground water table or such would be expected in the pre-flood environment. The "floodgates of heaven" have been interpreted by some that earth's atmosphere was different then today and contained more water, so that gives explanation of where the large amounts of rain came from. This is called the Hydrosphere, and it would have been beneficial for the environment because the extra water would have protected the earth from harmful radiation and UV rays from the sun. Also, remember that the earth is covered with over 70% water! With all of this in mind, a flood seems very likely. The flood was more than a little rain! The catastrophic events would have resulted in volcanos and disrupted the earth"s crust. Haven"t you noticed that the continents look like they could fit together? That is because Noah"s flood caused the earth to change drastically, and caused the continental drift that we see today. Because of that continental disruption, we have the mountains and valleys and ocean trenches and volcanos that we see today. Where did all the water go? That"s easy to explain! Look at the ocean. In some parts it is miles and miles deep. It wouldn"t have been that way before the flood. The earth"s crust was effected, and caused the ocean trenches and mountains we see today. The mountains that we see today (like Mt. Everest and such) and ocean trenches (which are miles and miles deep) would have formed as a result of tectonic plates shifting and reacting to the catastrophic events. The world we see today isn"t like the world before Noah"s flood. Things changed, as expected if a flood of that magnitude happened. 5) What about all the people groups? People groups (and animal groups) come through a proses that we call Natural Selection. This is when organisms go through changes that result in them being better suited to their environment. The genetic properties of all organisms during the time of the flood would have been very different. That is because Natural Selection results in the organism to LOSE DNA. Therefore, the rate of adaption would have been very different then today, and the genetic information would have been better, too. This results in better adaptation abilities, reproduction abilities, etc. Noah"s family would have grown. Then after the Tower of Babble, after the languages where mixed up, people would have migrated to different parts of the world. They could have travelled anywhere in the world because the continents would have been different then today. Now you talk about the problems with interbreeding of animals. Here is your problem though. Animals and people would have had perfect original genetic information when they were created. Their genetic information would not have been as corrupted and mutated, and they could interbreed safely before any mutations occur. Interbreeding is only bad now because genetic information, over time, becomes mutated and harmful. We live in a different time then Noah. Different times, different people and animals and kinds of genetic information. Is it too coincidental as you say? No, you forgot to consider what the genetic information would have been like at that time. Things change over time, remember that. 6) Ice Cores? Ice cores! But what causes them? They are caused when snow and water melts and freezes and melts and freezes and build up. But snow storms can create multiple layers of ice in just one year. A single snow storm can create many ice layers. Ice cores don"t represent annual layers. Ice doesn"t say "Oh, its January again, got to make another ice layer". Ice builds up, snow storms happen, so it"s impossible to accurately date ice cores. Now, what would be the atmospheric repercussions of the flood? The ice age. The ice age would have gone on for about 500 years, and with the changing climate after the flood, create a variety of kinds of ice layers. Ice Cores only support the flood. They are to be expected if the flood happened. To use ice cores to disprove the flood, you would have to assume that snow storms NEVER happened, and snow falls and ice builds up exactly the same much every single year. But there is lots of proof for an Ice Age, and snow storms. Also, that is not ancient atmosphere in the ice cores. If the earth went through a global flood, the atmosphere would have constantly gone through changes as a result. The conditions of the ice cores are to be expected. 7) Did the Flood Happen? Now, what if the flood happened? What would we expect? As I like the saying, "Billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth". These are called fossils, and yes, we do find them. We would expect all people to be from the same family, if only Noah"s family survived. "Thanks to the genetics revolution we now know that there is no such thing as race. The Human Genome Project (HGP) has determined unequivocally that there is the same amount of genetic variation among individuals within a so called racial group as there is between individuals in different racial groups. What that means is that there is no real genetic difference between blacks and whites or between whites and Asians or between any of the so called races." We would expect that the world would be mostly made up of water. Yep, 70% water. Noah"s flood has been proven to have happened. There are countless things that show that it happened. 8) What about dating methods and such? Dating methods are common in debates about the age of the earth, and timing when things happened in the past. I don"t disagree that those rocks exist, I disagree on the interpretation. People assume that rocks "show" certain ages. But sorry to tell you, a rock doesn"t speak or show anything, it"s just a rock. Common dating methods have been used on volcano"s that just erupted. When scientists date the rocks right after the eruption, the cooled lava is said to be millions of years old. "wait, what? People just saw the rock form, and it is supposed to be millions of years old? That"s the problem. The methods aren"t accurate. Mt Saint Helens erupted about 50 years ago, and when people date the rocks, they get that the eruption happened millions of years ago. - - All dating methods you can try to use to disprove me will be wrong and not work. That is because they are made on 3 assumptions. 1) You assume what the original conditions where 2) You assume there was never contamination 3) You assume rates and conditions have always been consistent and constant You have to use assumptions when using dating methods. Therefore, traditional dating methods cannot disprove that the flood ever happened. Dating methods depend on wrong assumptions. If the flood happened, we would expect some conditions all over the world to change and not be the same. Dating methods are drastically flawed, and do not disprove the flood, weather its ice core dating or some other kind of method. Many of the points I made are slightly simplified. I can go into more detail about anything, but I tried keeping it short so everything is understandable https://answersingenesis.org... http://www.adversity.net... https://answersingenesis.org... https://answersingenesis.org...