The Hidden Beauty of the Hebrew Genealogies
Biblical Earth Movements After the Flood
PART V - FINAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR ABBREVIATED GENEALOGIES
Chapter Twelve
The Bible commends faith. But Scripture also requires a correct object for faith. Christians are well aware of the disasters resulting from faith in Jim Jones and Joseph Smith. Faith in Jones took the lives of 900 individuals while faith in Smith perpetuates a false gospel. This book seeks to show that a faith that accepts the global Flood of Noah’s day must include the way Scripture used Hebrew genealogies. This chapter addresses the over-simplified view that major earth movements were complete by the Flood’s end. The most graphic representation of such over-literal faith has the ark passengers descending from the top of Great Ararat which is 16,900 feet above sea level. Meanwhile it overlooks such events as the fire of God which took Job’s 7000 sheep over a thousand years after the Flood, the deepening of the Syro-African Rift in the Jordan Valley 2000 years after the Flood and even such secular memories as the lost city of Atlantis.
Scripture declares two events that brought on the Flood: “all the fountains of the great deep burst forth” and “the windows of the heavens were opened.” Genesis 7:11. As a result, ocean floors rose, continents sank and rain fell on the earth, until the ark floated (7:18). Through these processes the water continued to rise until “all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered.” Genesis 7:19. After those 150 days of intense turbulence in which the water first rose above the highest mountain and then receded enough for the Ark to land, God took actions which eventually ended the Flood and removed the water. Scripture summarizes with 2“The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were closed, the rain from heaven was restrained, 3and the waters receded from the earth continually.” Genesis 8:2-3. This, too, was not immediate but was a process.
Scripture gives the following detail of timing: The rain began “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month.” Genesis 7:11. At day 150 God closed the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven (Genesis 8:2-3). After another 150 plus days the waters were dried from off the earth (Genesis 8:13). But the ground was dangerously wet. It took almost two more months for the earth to dry out (Genesis 8:14). 15“Then God said to Noah, ‘Go out from the Ark….’ 18So Noah went out, and his sons…19everything that moves on the earth went out…” Genesis 8:15, 18-19. The Flood itself was a process that involved time, over one year.
The above verses assure us that four families and all the various kinds of air-breathing land creatures had been preserved in the Ark. They also record the timing and receding of the Flood. The Flood was the most earth-changing event in all history. But to take from these verses that all earth movements ended on day 370 of the Flood is an overreach of faith. The following pages will cite numerous instances of continuing earth movements.
Location of the Ark
“The ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.” Genesis 8:4. Since the highest peak in the Ararat range is Great Ararat at 16,945’, tradition and many Christians declare Great Ararat as the landing place of Noah’s ark since the Ark came to rest several months before any other mountains were visible. But further information gives a very different picture. First, Great Ararat and Little Ararat (12,782’) which is eleven miles distant are volcanoes. In fact, the entire region is volcanic. Today, the plain to the southwest of Great Ararat rises to 5000 feet above sea level while the broad alluvial plain north and east of Great Ararat rises to 3300 feet above sea level. Most importantly, the editor, Moses, wrote about 1400 BC. By this time, the Ararat Range had two and a half millennia after the Flood to rise to the height of a mountain range.
For the entire ark contingent of thousands of creatures plus the eight adults to climb down from the mountain top and settle in some valley is an idea generated by over-literalism. Noah and his family would have used supplies on the Ark to reestablish life. Making hundreds of trips back up the mountain for all those supplies and materials would have been impossible. What actually happened? God provided a hill higher than the other hills for the Ark’s landing. Noah’s family established a community on or near that hill and began farming. As time passed volcanic eruptions in the area persuaded the family to seek a safer habitat. As they safely exited the area volcanic activity began forming mountains. As recently as 1840 AD Great Ararat erupted and lava flowed to increase its size. Today the Ararat range with its high plateaus is the result of 6000 years of volcanic activity.
Collapse of the Jordan Valley
Two thousand years after the Flood, the Jordan Valley still resembled the fertile Nile River Valley. Scripture even likens the Jordan Valley to the Garden of Eden. This disclosure comes at the time Abraham and Lot parted company because their herdsmen were fighting over the available land. Then a violent act of nature left the valley desolate. Here is how the area looked before this happened:
8Then Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we are kinsmen. 9Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.” 10And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar. Genesis 13:8-10.
In Egypt the Nile overflowed its banks each spring as it carried water to the sea from the annual rains to the south. In doing so, it fertilized the soil with a thin layer of rich silt. It also replenished ground moisture, providing life-giving water for crops to be planted and causing vegetation to flourish in this dry area. Without this annual life-giving renewal, ancient Egypt with its pyramids, temples and tombs would not have existed. The same was true with that first garden God planted for Adam. A river flowed through the garden and divided into four rivers, so great was the quantity of water God supplied.
In the same way the land Lot chose thrived because it had an abundance of water. Scripture uses two words to describe the unusual quantity of water. When it says the land was watered, it adds the modifier “well.” The land wasn’t merely watered, it was well watered. But that still was inadequate, so the word “everywhere” was added. Lot saw the Jordan Valley to be “well-watered everywhere.” It wasn’t just the river that watered the valley because the valley was broad, a plain. In addition to the generous amount of water supplied by the river, it received an abundance of water from other sources. Consequently, this valley was green, lush, ideal for Lot’s herds. Then Scripture adds those two other lands known for their abundant watering. The Jordan Valley was watered like that original garden God planted for man and like the well-watered land of Egypt in that day.
Following this highly favorable description of the Jordan Valley, Scripture adds an onerous parenthesis: “This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.” Just 20 or so years after Lot chose the lush Jordan Valley, God told him to leave it immediately and flee to the eastern hills. The next morning the destruction began. It was an awesome earth movement. The two sides to the valley moved in such a way that the valley dropped enough to become the lowest place on earth. The event was accompanied by an unleashing of molten lava called “fire and brimstone.”
Lot first took refuge in a village on the edge of the pentapolis. But then he moved to the hills God originally told him to flee to. While his time in that small town may have been short, maybe just long enough to get some rest, it shows that this earth movement was a process. It progressed over time. In the morning it took Sodom and Gomorrah. As it crept closer to the nearby town Lot had begged to stay in, Lot changed his mind and ran to the hills, out of the valley. Whether this was a day or a week, it indicates that a process was going on. In the end Lot became a cave man and his two daughters spoke of a scarcity of men. This speaks of the desolation of the area.
The event took most life in the area, caused the floor of the plain to drop well over 1000 feet and left the area a permanent blight on the face of the earth. Abraham lived on a 2600’ high plateau overlooking this inferno. Even though he had lived there for 15 or so years and had good relations with the resident Amorites, he moved away. Why? Scripture doesn’t say but most likely the continuing smoke, fire and brimstone, earthquakes, etc., compelled him to find a quieter area for his people and vast herds and flocks.
The formation that this event produced or enlarged is called the Syro-African Rift. While the tearing away of these two enormous chunks of earth on either side of the broad plain may have started at the time of the Flood, the work was not completed until 2000 years later. Because Scripture documents so completely the before and after, this represents an undeniable earth movement long after the Flood. Historically, few have really taken Scripture’s “before” description of a well-watered Jordan Valley seriously. These 500 or so words are given to help believers grasp the gravity of this event.
It was not merely a volcanic eruption. It was the movement of two enormous blocks of the surface of the earth and it mostly happened over a period of years in as much as Lot was left living in a cave and his two sons remain in those hills rather than moving to that formerly fertile valley. Today, apart from irrigation, that area is barren and even features a sea of salt. While there had been eruptions before and contained an area of tar pits that was not hospitable to man, it only became desolate with this event.
Major Earth Movements Cited in Job
Entirely overlooked and explained as poetic license are the eye-popping earth movements found in the Book of Job. The best known is the volcanic eruption that took away his sheep. Job 1:16 relates the event: “…There came another (messenger) and said, ‘The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them and I alone have escaped to tell you.’” The messenger had a term for the event. It was a part of his vocabulary which indicates that it happened frequently enough that it was a part of that area’s vocabulary. He called it “the fire of God.” This was 1500 years after the Flood. While not an earth movement as such, vulcanism commonly accompanies earth movements.
Job had 7000 sheep. A rule of thumb was one shepherd for each 100 sheep which were kept in separate flocks and scattered widely so as not to overgraze. With the keepers would have been supervisors and support and possibly even older sons maybe several hundred servants in all. Job’s ranch is described in chapter nine. It was mostly desolate and rocky, covering possibly 1000 square miles. HB estimates that his sheep required about 15 square miles of grassland. The grassland would be scattered over the ranch. So for this volcanic eruption to be 100% lethal, a volcanic event that today happens maybe once a century had to have occurred.
Another messenger arrived to report “’Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house. And behold a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.’” Job 1:18-19. These ten children of Job are called “young people.” That is a relative term. They were young in comparison to Job who was a generation older. They were his young people. Actually, they were semi-retired and spent much of their time enjoying each other’s company.
Further they were not in a tent but in a house. His children would have imitated Job’s care in what he did, so this house would have been well-built. It would have been made of stone so it would be cool during the hot weather. It would also be strong because strong winds characterized the storms of the time. Today the force of winds is rated according to wind speed and atmospheric pressure with a category five condition being the strongest. Satan managed to produce a wind speed and atmospheric pressure that collapsed the entire stone house. At the party were all ten of Job’s children, so it is likely that other family members were present as well as a host of servants. The collapsing house killed every last person in it except for a single servant.
The event could have been accompanied by an unmentioned earthquake. The fire of God and a wind greater than those of today indicate a time of increased natural disasters and is consistent with greater earth movements than today. By our estimates Job was born about 1400 years after the Flood, in the final days of the Ice Age. Since these two events (the Flood and the Ice Age) are unique to the entire history of the earth, we can more readily accept other statements in the book of Job that are dismissed as exaggerations or figures of speech.
Repeated references are made to lightning and thunder. Job, Elihu and God Himself all mention lightning and thunder and the thunder is said to be the voice of God. Elihu said the most about them:
1At this my heart trembles and leaps out of its place. 2Keep listening to the thunder of his voice and the rumbling that comes from his mouth. 3Under the whole heaven he lets it go, and his lightning to the corners of the earth. 4After it his voice roars; he thunders with his majestic voice, and does not restrain the lightnings when his voice is heard. 5God thunders wondrously with his voice… Job 37:1-5.
Job asked, “The thunder of his power, who can understand?” Job26:14. Later, God asked Job, “Can you thunder with a voice like his (God’s)?” Job 40:9. Indeed, God is the creator of all so He is the creator of the sound caused by His creation. In this way the idea of thunder being the voice of God is acceptable. No one would question that Elihu, Job and God are pointing to literal lightning and thunder. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that when a speaker in Job refers to an act of nature, the speaker is referring to a literal event.
Now, let us apply that idea to the following verse: “How can a man be right before God? …He who removes mountains, and they know it not, when he overturns them in his anger….” Job 9:2, 5. God moved mountains in Job’s day? Yes. Further, Job adds that they are turned upside down. It was not difficult to accept that the speakers above were pointing to literal lightning and thundering. But to accept that Job was speaking of literal mountains being removed and even overturned pictures a world far different from today. Today that rarely happens. But in Job’s day it was a part of life. Over a thousand years after the Flood, mountains were commonly overturned. Here was evidence beyond dispute that God was powerful and no man could oppose his power.
But maybe this is overreach. Maybe some mountains appeared upside down, so the idea was spread that God had overturned them. Possibly, except Job is not done speaking. He began this response by agreeing with Bildad on God’s power. His next statement seems to confirm that in his day mountains were overturned. He says in verse 6 “Who shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble.” Here is the cause of overturned mountains—earthquakes. But who hears of an earthquake that shakes the earth out of its place, that causes the entire planet to shake today? When these earthquakes occurred in Job’s day, the people in his part of the world attributed them to God and they showed God was so powerful that it was hopeless to think of opposing Him. Without question there was much earth movement during the Flood, but it obviously did not end with the Flood.
In the discourse of Job chapter 14, erosion is used to illustrate how Job’s hope is being worn away. But the erosion Job speaks of is far greater than current erosion rates. Job says, “But the mountain falls and crumbles away, and the rock is removed from its place; the waters wear away the stones; the torrents wash away the soil of the earth; so you destroy the hope of man.” Job 14:18-19. In Job’s day erosion caused entire mountains to crumble. This is super erosion. It was not confined to the waters of the Flood. Such erosion was still happening in Job’s day, possibly 1500 years after the Flood. The Ice Age generated such rain storms. They were so powerful they are called hypercanes, a super hurricane. One was modeled. It showed up to 300 inches of rain would fall in 18 days.
These places and acts of nature in Job must be genuine since no one questions the following natural elements found in Job: land of Uz (1:1); the earth (1:7); deep darkness/thick clouds (22:13-14); cold (24:7); drought/heat (24:19); full moon (26:9); snow (37:6); ice (37:9); hail (38:22); dew (38:28); frost (38:29); ocean surface frozen (38:30).
In conclusion the Flood did not complete the reshaping of the world. This process continued for centuries and even millennia after the Flood. Any other take on the statements above is a rejection of those portions of Scripture and a denial of inerrancy. Scripture urges sound faith. Sound faith recognizes earth movements after the Flood that continued for a considerable time but slowly diminished to the frequency of modern times.
Processes During the Flood
The following section is provided as a reminder that even during the Flood, God used processes. For starters, the Flood took months to cover the highest mountains/hills, not an instant. No known commentary discusses how fast the water would have to rise and for good reason. To do so one would first have to know the elevation of the highest mountain before the Flood as well as how much of the rising water was due to rainfall, to the lifting of ocean floors and to the sinking of continents. None of these facts are available. But it is sobering to realize that rainfall as fast as one inch an hour would only produce a rise of two feet in a day or 80 feet in 40 days.
According to the Guinness Book of Records, the most rain in 24 hours ever recorded was 71.8” (i.e., six feet). It fell on January 7-8, 1966 during a tropical cyclone at the 9600’ level of a French territorial Island in the Indian Ocean. That is approximately three inches an hour. If that record rate continued for the entire first forty days of the Flood, it would only raise sea level by 240 feet, hardly enough to cover mile-high mountains. More likely the amount of rain that fell per hour was many times the modern record. If 12 inches fell per hour, sea level would rise 960’ in 40 days. But imagine what that would do to the roof of the Ark.
Sinking land masses and rising ocean floors are other possible ways to raise sea level. The opening of the fountains of the great deep is listed first in the biblical text while the opening of the windows of heaven is mentioned second. The windows of heaven gave rain but Scripture does not tell what the fountains of the deep gave. Possibly they involved massive molten rock pouring up from the mantle into ocean floors, thereby raising sea level in a second way. This would explain why ocean floor crust is generally younger than land crust. Secular geologists find former mantle rock in many places on the surface of the earth, so in the past, magma did rise to the surface of the earth’s crust. The ocean floor is only a dozen or so miles above the mantle whereas the surface of land generally is about five times as much. This would be another reason for much of the magma rising into the ocean rather than on land. Maybe those fountains raised sea level considerably more than the rain from the windows of heaven.
Without question unimaginable earth movements occurred during the Flood. But accounts in Scripture indicate earth movements continued after the Flood. While their frequency and intensity decreased with time, the record of Scripture leaves little doubt but that they did continue. Their activity is clearly seen in the physical appearance of today’s earth surface.
Therefore, great earth movements continued long after the Flood ended. Creationists must include this fact when determining the earth’s surface before the Flood, immediately after the Flood and observing it today. Squeezing all earth surface movements into the year of the Flood overlooks much Scripture, but insight into the ramifications they imply strongly increases the soundness of a global flood apart from biblical revelation.