Geographical extent of the Flood.

            The Bible gives the following brief account of this event. God sees the wickedness of men, and determines to destroy them excepting Noah and his family (Genesis 6:1-8). He reveals his decree to Noah and instructs him how he may save himself and the seed of all animal life by means of an ark to be built according to certain dimensions (6:9-22). Seven days before the Flood, God commands the patriarch to enter the ark (7:1-5). Noah completes his entrance into the ark on the very day on which the Flood begins; the rain falls for forty days and nights; all living things outside the ark are destroyed; the waters prevail upon the earth a hundred and fifty days (7:6-24). The waters decrease, the earth dries up; Noah ascertains its condition by means of a raven and a dove sent out from the ark (8:1-14). Noah obeys the Divine command to leave the ark, builds an altar, offers sacrifice, makes a covenant with God, and begins to be a husbandman (9:1-27).

            A good rule of Biblical interpretation is to analyze that which is less specific in the light of that which is more specific. The Bible is very specific about the extent of the defilement of man's sin and about God's response. The defilement is limited to the sinners and their progeny for several generations. The extent of the Genesis flood would be limited to the extent of the defilement of man's sin.

            Genesis 8 gives us the most significant evidence for a universal (with respect to man and his animals and lands), but not global, flood. The four different Hebrew verbs used in Genesis 8:1-8 to describe the receding of the flood waters indicate that these waters returned to their original sources. In other words, the waters of the flood are still to be found within the aquifers and troposphere and oceans of planet Earth. Since the total water content of the earth is only 22 percent of what would be needed for a global flood, it should be clear that the Genesis flood could not have been global.

The expression “under the entire heavens” must be understood in its context. What would constitute “under the entire heavens” for the people of Noah's time? It probably refers to the extent of their view from the entire region in which they existed or operated. Perhaps a verse from the New Testament will clarify my point. In Romans 1:8 the Apostle Paul declares that the faith of the Christians in Rome was being “reported all over the world.” Since “all over the world” to the Romans meant the entire Roman Empire (and not the entire globe), we would not interpret Paul's words as an indication that the Eskimos and Incas were familiar at that time with the activities of the church at Rome.

            What does the geological data tell us about massive floods in the earth's history? The evidence shows that the only place in the world where massive flooding has occurred since the advent of modern man was in the regions near Mesopotamia.

Biblical clues to the geographical limits on human habitation can be found in the places Genesis mentions or does not mention. In Genesis 1-9 the text mentions place-names only in the environs of Mesopotamia. From Genesis 10 onward, we encounter references (by name or direction) to places beyond Mesopotamia, in fact, to places covering much of the Eastern hemisphere.

            This sudden shift from narrow to wider geographical range after Genesis 10 strongly suggests that until the time of the Flood, human beings and their animals remained in and around Mesopotamia. Therefore, to fulfill His purpose in sending the deluge, God would need to flood only the Mesopotamian plain and probably some adjacent territories.

            The Genesis account of the great flood is not an embarrassment for the Christian. We are not saddled with a contradiction between the established facts of science and the words of the Bible. Rather, we have one more piece of objective evidence that the Bible is indeed unerring.

            Does all this evidence for a regional flood mean that the Genesis flood was not universal? Not at all. The Genesis flood was “universal” in that it destroyed the sinful mankind that surrounded Noah. There many other regions of the world not settled by humans at the time of the Flood — the whole Western Hemisphere, for one. In fact, the human race had remained localized in the environs of Mesopotamia. That was the only place God needed to inundate — the region that constituted the whole world to the antediluvians.

Noah and his family's post-Flood activities argue against the global cataclysm hypothesis. Genesis records that Noah and his family began profitable agriculture immediately after leaving the ark — impossible if such extreme erosion and tectonics had rearranged the landscape. We recall, too, that an olive leaf was available to be plucked by the dove while the floodwaters were still receding. No olive tree, let alone its leaves, would have survived tens of thousands of feet of erosion, tectonics, and volcanic activity packed into a few months or even a few years.

            The effects of such monstrous erosion, tectonics, and volcanic activity would be easily measurable by geophysicists today if they had occurred. Just as a rock dropped into a pond disappears but sends ripples radiating outward for many seconds, so huge tectonic events cause the core of Earth to “ring” for many tens of thousands of years. Seismologists hear no such ringing. Nor do geophysicists find a shred of evidence for recent volcanic activity and erosion on a scale as great as the hypothesis demands.

            One might assume that a Flood of such immense proportions would leave behind substantial evidence, a deposit that geologists today should be able to find. Several large alluvial flood deposits have been found in the Mesopotamian plain (T. C. Mitchell, “Geology and the Flood,” in New Bible Dictionary, 2d ed., eds. J. D. Douglas, et al., Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1982, pp. 382-383). One or more could fit in the time range for the Genesis Flood. The lack of a precise enough date for the Flood, however, hinders any positive identification.

            The Flood, though massive, lasted but one year and ten days. A flood of such brief duration typically does not leave a deposit substantial enough to be positively identified thousands of years later. As an example, consider the flooding that occurred in California's San Joaquin Valley in the 1970s. The valley lay under three to four feet of water for a few months. Ten years later, all geological evidence of the disaster had been erased. Similarly, a one-year flood in the region of Mesopotamia, even to a depth of two or three hundred feet, would leave behind insufficient evidence for a positive geological identification ten to forty thousand years later.

            In summary, the flood event described in Genesis 6-9 did, indeed, accomplish the ends God clearly intended — and explicitly stated — without covering the entire planet. It may be accurately described as universal, with respect to humans and the animals associated with them, but not as global:

Biblical phrases such as “under the entire heavens” and “the face of the earth” must be interpreted in the writer's (and most readers') context as true, where these terms are used elsewhere in Scripture. The extent and spread of human population and, thus, of sin's impact, was limited, not global. In fact, God rebuked the human race for its failure to spread out over the globe. Genesis mentions no geographical place-names beyond Greater Mesopotamia until chapter ten. Earth's water quantity supports a regional rather than global Flood. The floodwaters came from Earth's underground and atmospheric resources, which are plentiful but inadequate to cover the globe. Mountain ranges and ocean basins cannot erode in forty days nor build up in eleven months, as would be required by one explanation of a global Flood, without leaving evidence easily visible today. The creatures earmarked for rescue included only Noah, Noah's family, and birds and mammals that had significant contact with the people in the region where Noah lived. No one could claim that all animals from all continents of the world came to Noah to be saved and after the Flood returned to their native places. Even 100 vessels the size of Noah’s arc would not suffice to allocate them. The million-plus animal species on Earth today could not have evolved in just a few thousand years from the thirty thousand species, maximum, the ark could have carried. Genesis 7 does not claim that water stood above the highest mountains like Everest; rather, it says that a deluge covered the highest hills visible to Noah. Genesis 8:4 records that the ark landed in the mountains or hills of the Ararat region, not specifically on top of Mount Ararat itself. The designated area encompasses more than one hundred thousand square miles. Olive leaves do not grow at high altitudes, nor could they survive a global flood. The water of a global flood could not recede in less than a year. A strong wind (Genesis 8:1) would be useful for dissipating a regional but not a global flood. No viable scientific evidence has ever been found for a recent global flood.

On the other hand, there are many indications and hints that a huge flood did occur in the time of Noah in Mesopotamia and in the regions close to it.