Are Scientific Discoveries Consistent With The Biblical Flood?
Are modern scientific discoveries consistent with the Biblical flood? Many “experts” view the Biblical flood account as a myth. The Bible records the global flood of about 4,400-5,500 years ago in Genesis chapters 6-8, when:
“For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits. Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.”—Genesis 7:17-24 NIV
This global cataclysm caused major changes to the earth itself and its atmosphere and climate, and resulted in catastrophic loss of plant, animal, and human life on earth. While modern science doesn’t acknowledge, or factor in, the Biblical flood, scientists have discovered extreme climatic and anthropologic changes that took place on earth long ago. Although the estimated time period is different from the Bible’s, scientific discoveries are consistent with what the Bible describes of the global deluge and its results.
Notice the following excerpts from Science, 31 August, 2023:
From 800,000 to 900,000 years ago, however, the picture would have been quite different. Hu et al. used a newly developed coalescent model to predict past human population sizes from more than 3000 present-day human genomes (see the Perspective by Ashton and Stringer). The model detected a reduction in the population size of our ancestors from about 100,000 to about 1000 individuals, which persisted for about 100,000 years. The decline appears to have coincided with both major climate change and subsequent speciation events. —Sacha Vignieri
Population size history is essential for studying human evolution. However, ancient population size history during the Pleistocene is notoriously difficult to unravel. In this study, we developed a fast infinitesimal time coalescent process (FitCoal) to circumvent this difficulty and calculated the composite likelihood for present-day human genomic sequences of 3154 individuals. Results showed that human ancestors went through a severe population bottleneck with about 1280 breeding individuals between around 930,000 and 813,000 years ago. The bottleneck lasted for about 117,000 years and brought human ancestors close to extinction. This bottleneck is congruent with a substantial chronological gap in the available African and Eurasian fossil record. Our results provide new insights into our ancestry and suggest a coincident speciation event.
Science has discovered these main facts consist with the Biblical flood:
- Evidence of major flood event all over the earth
- Major climate change and speciation events
- Drastic reduction in human, animal and plant life
While the analysis above does not correspond in all details with the Biblical record, it is consistent with what the Bible record about the great flood of Noah’t time. Jesus believed that Noah, the ark, and the global flood were all real, as we can see:
“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.”—Matthew 24:37-39 NIV
The Bible is confirmed as true, by its own internal evidence, as well as external evidence, such as textual, scientific, geographical, historical, archaeological documented facts. The scientific evidence consistent with the global flood, noted above, is just one of thousands of facts supporting this.
Scientific geological evidence is consistent with, and supports, a global flood, as described in the Bible. Even with all of this physical evidence for the Biblical flood, the primary evidence for the global flood is found in the Bible, not in science.
The Son of God, Jesus Christ, referred to “the flood,” “in Noah’s day” (Matthew 24:37-39 NLT) as a historical fact. Why? Because he knew that it really happened! He saw the flood “from heaven” where he lived prior to coming to earth (John 6:38). The apostle Peter wrote under inspiration that:
“God . . . did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others”—2 Peter 2:4,5 NIV
“God . . . brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water. Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood”—2 Peter 3:5,6 NLT
God’s Word, the Bible, consistently presents “the flood,” “in Noah’s day” (Matthew 24:37 NLT), as being global, as well as being a historical fact. Modern scientific discoveries are consistent with the biblical flood.
6 thoughts on “Are Scientific Discoveries Consistent With The Biblical Flood?”
The story of Noah’s Flood is fiction. Of course there have been floods throughout human history, but none matches the details of Noah’s Flood, as described in Genesis.
“Most importantly, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.’Where is the promise of His coming?’ they will ask. ‘Ever since our fathers fell asleep, everything continues as it has from the beginning of creation.’
But they deliberately overlook the fact that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world of that time perished in the flood.”—2 Peter 3:3-6 Berean Standard Bible
There will be scoffers of superstitions in all days. Jesus is dead and not coming back. There is no good evidence that there was a creation. God does not exist. We now know this. It has been proven. In every major flood, some people perish. The story of Noah’s Flood is just fiction.
We thought you might enjoy this from our Bible Authenticity Forum on Delphi Forums:
B–>>No one has ever been able to prove the Bible false in anything.<< D---Technically, this would be correct, but only because it's not possible to outright prove a negative: that something isn't real or didn't happen. While rather preposterous and unsupported by any actual evidence, you still can't prove that Bigfoot doesn't kidnap and eat human babies. You can't prove that werewolves don't exist. You can't prove that Mohammad didn't actually ride a winged horse up to heaven and back again. And so on. But do you have any burden to prove it? None whatsoever. No one can outright prove that the Bible -- or any other supposedly holy book -- is wrong about anything it claims. But so what? The burden of proof rests with the person who makes the positive claim (the Bible is 100% true), not the person who expresses doubt. The fact that something cannot be outright disproved is not a sufficient reason in-and-of-itself to believe it's true. In fact, it's one of the poorest reasons to think something is true. It's actually a fallacy: argumentum ad ignorantiam. B---The problem for the skeptics position against the Bible is that the Bible has proven the critics wrong time after time. For example, the skeptics and critics once claimed that: 1. The Hittites never existed (Genesis 23) 2. The Assyrian Empire never existed (2 Kings 15:29) 3. Pontius Pilate never existed (John 18:28-19:16) 4. Belshazzar was never king of Babylon (Daniel 5:1) 5. The rabbit did not chew its cud (Leviticus 11:6). 6. The isn't round (Isaiah 40:22) 7. The earth is supported by elephants, Atlas, etc., rather than nothing (Job 26:7) 8. The universe did not have a beginning (Genesis 1:1) 9. The term "city magistrates" [Greek: "politarchs"] in Thessalonica (Acts 17:6,8 NAB) was fictional 10. King David did not exist (1 Kings 2:11) 11. The Biblical text was unreliable, changed over time (the Dead Sea Scrolls proved that false) There are many more examples. I like winners. The Bible always wins against its critics. D---You seem to be telling me that it was the sin of Adam and Eve in the creation story of Genesis that brought sin and death into God's perfect creation for the first time, and turned all humans born thereafter into sinners in need of having Jesus come as their savior. B---True. D---If so, that requires this question: What if, as a great deal of scientific evidence indicates, humans, like all other species, evolved over millions of years into what they have now become? If, for sake of argument, that "original sin" event in Genesis isn't a true event, and Adam and Eve were mythical rather than real people, then by logical inference, because one of its foundational doctrines is the introduction of sin into the world by divinely created Adam and Eve, would this carry the implication that Christianity is a religion that is based upon a falsehood, based upon an event that never actually happened, and thus a false religion? B---"If", "What if", "If"??? We could speculate into infinity, couldn't we? There is no scientific evidence that: 1. Something can come from nothing. 2. Living organisms developed from non-living matter 3. Fish evolved into amphibians, amphibians into reptiles, reptiles into birds and mammals There is, on the other hand, abundant evidence supporting the facts that: 1. The universe and living things are far to complex to have evolved into existence without a master designer and maker 2. Living things reproduce only after their own 'kinds' (Genesis 1:11,12,21,24,25). D---It does not appear to make any sense for evolving humans to have suddenly one day sort of magically turned from non-human thus sinless animals into fully human and sinful beings that somehow angered God and turned them all into candidates for heaven or hell depending upon whether or not they believe in and worship Jesus. From the standpoint of reason applied to actual evidence, do you see the problem, and if so, how do you solve this problem? B---No, "From the standpoint of reason applied to actual evidenceI", don't agree with your reasoning. What the Bible says makes sense. Humans did not evolve from animals. The gulf between them is far too great. God explicitly warned humans of the consequences of disobedience (Genesis 2:15-17). Absent disobedience, humans would not have had any problems or died. Since the Bible has proved true in countless other matters, there is no reason to doubt it in areas we may not completely understand.
Yes. I enjoyed being critical of it. Thanks.
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