Is the Noachian Flood story plausible?

[_Mister Scratch]

I believe that if anyone were to study the propect of there really being a global flood at 2600 BC most science bots could not accept it. However, perhaps they or we are not reading the story of the flood with a believing heart in scripture.
On the 2nd day of creation God said, "Let there be a FIRMAMENT in the midst of the waters and let it divide the water from the water.
So God created the FIRMAMENT and divided the water which was above the FIRMAMENT from the waters which were under the firmament. And it was so. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

The firmament is the atmosphere that God created over the earth which naturally extends upward until it reaches a place in the heavens where even the atmosphere freezes.

Okay, I am no scientist, but unless I am mistaken, there is no "frozen shell" of atmosphere surrounding the earth...

Absolute zero is minus 460 degrees and if there was water above the atmosphere what condition would you say the water would have to be in?

Ice.

Naturally it would have to be ice. If we read the 7th chapter of Genesis carefully you should discover that the canopy of ice that was above the atmosphere was broken open because of the planet venus, because of its high eccentricity comes within 30000 miles of earth every 18000 years. That would be the cause of the canopy of ice breaking open and the cause of the ice flood.

???? How do you figure? Are you claiming that the gravitational pull of Venus is somehow more significant the the pull of the moon?

In studying the facts stated about the flood in the Bible you should notice that Noah saw the tops of the mountains after 10 months. That should have divided the earth into separate continents at that time. The earth before that time could not have been divided because there was only one body of water on the earth.

I'm not sure I follow your logic here. Are you saying that there could not have been continents due to the fact that there were no continents? Or are you claiming that the Flood created the continents as we know them today?

But the earth was divided into continents some 400 years after Noah in the days of Peleg. It is written in the 10 chapter of Genesis: "In the days of Peleg was the earth divided." The ice woulde have slowly melted and slowly ran down to the lower parts of the earth until some 400 years after Noah had entered the ark the earth was divided into continents.
It might also be helpful to know that most of earth's mountain ranges were created by orogeny, or by gravity puling the mountains out of the earth.

I don't think that this is true, Grandpa. After all, gravity pulls things toward the Earth; it does not repel them outwards.... I am no geologist, or expert in plate tectonics, but I believe that most mountains are the result of continental drift---i.e., some ranges are the result of the crust of the Earth being pulled apart, while others are the result of plates being crushed together.... Further, your example doesn't really explain what role the Flood may have played in any of this terra forming.

There is a mountain near Oakland, CA called Mount Diablo, rightfully named Devils mountain because of the fact that the mountain is sitting upside down. You can find the older rocks on the bottom and the newer ones on top. Just the oposite of what it should be.

I am confused about this example. Do you feel that this provides evidence in favor of the Flood?

There are several good books on the subject of the flood by some scientists who believe the flood came about just as I have explained it. One book that I personally like in called "The Ice Epoch and the Flood" By Donald W. Patton.

Like I have said before; I never doubt the authenticy of any of our scriptures but I do doubt in some people's interpretation of those scriptures.

Believe it or not by;

grampa75

[_moksha]

Gramps, if indeed the entire atmosphere and the earth was frozen solid at Kelvin's zero point, would that not have put a damper on the Adam and Eve thing up through Noah?

[_skippy the dead]

There is a mountain near Oakland, CA called Mount Diablo, rightfully named Devils mountain because of the fact that the mountain is sitting upside down. You can find the older rocks on the bottom and the newer ones on top. Just the oposite of what it should be.

I am confused about this example. Do you feel that this provides evidence in favor of the Flood?

Whatever the purpose of the example, I'd have to say it isn't evidence for the flood. Rather, it's a result of some fairly "normal" geologic activity:

The oldest rocks are located in the central and highest peaks. As you proceed downslope, away from the summit, the rocks are younger. The older core rocks were formed far at sea at a spreading ocean rift zone, as much as 165 million years ago. As a part of moving tectonic plates, they were brought to the North American continent and into a subduction zone. Part of this ocean crust and overlying sediments were scraped off the subducting plate and forced under some sedimentary material already here. This area was later uplifted, pushing up the coastal range. Meanwhile, before that happened, much of California was an inland sea, rising and falling from one ice age to the next, and into which rivers deposited the sediments. Ultimately these sedimentary layers were compressed into solid rock, typically sandstone and shale. About four million years ago the Diablo region was low rolling hills.
About two million years ago, the same pressures that break the earth along the San Andreas fault began to form a large-scale compressional fold. The raised sedimentary layers were eroded away and tilted up and now they wrap around the harder, older mountain core. The tilted sedimentary layers now stand almost vertically is places such as Rock City, Castle Rock, Fossil Ridge, and Devil's Slide. Erosion has removed thousands of feet of what was overlying material, exposing the core as we know Mount Diablo, and carving fascinating features as wind caves and tunnels.

[Anonymous]

[snipped out all the crap]

Believe it or not by; [editor's note: I don't]

grampa75

I think I'll leave this post for the more scientific people on the board. Scientists?

Scientists? This guy doesn't need scientists to refute him. I think my daughter could do it with her 8th grade science education. For that matter, she could have done it with her 3rd grade science education. I think, for that matter, even the kid who had to be in the 3rd grade twice because he got held back for failing science could do it.

For what it's worth, the atmosphere doesn't come anywhere near absolute zero near the outer layers, or anywhere else. There was no shell of ice surrounding the earth, and if there had been, and it were thick enough to have provided all of the water to flood the earth to the tops of the highest mountains, it would have blocked out the sun and nothing could have grown, and the earth would have been freezing cold due to lack of solar radation hitting the surface. Venus doesn't come within 30,000 miles of the earth. The Moon itself doesn't come any closer to the earth than 225000 miles. Venus' closest distance to earth is 26 million miles. Assuming the ice shell as described, however, if it all fell to earth and melted, the absorption of the latent heat of fusion by the ice to melt it all into the floodwaters would probably drop earth's temperature radically. Of course, since there wouldn't have been any solar radiation hitting the earth because of the ice shell, it would already have been freezing down here, so there's nowhere for the latent heat of fusion to come from anyhow. Rather than a global flood it would have just been a global ice storm and everything would have been buried in ice, rather than drowned.

Anyway, such notions are preposterous.

[_Bond...James Bond]

Scientists? This guy doesn't need scientists to refute him. I think my daughter could do it with her 8th grade science education. For that matter, she could have done it with her 3rd grade science education. I think, for that matter, even the kid who had to be in the 3rd grade twice because he got held back for failing science could do it.

Alright I was just lazy and didn't want to come up with some sarcastic remarks.

[_grampa75]

There is a mountain near Oakland, CA called Mount Diablo, rightfully named Devils mountain because of the fact that the mountain is sitting upside down. You can find the older rocks on the bottom and the newer ones on top. Just the oposite of what it should be.

I am confused about this example. Do you feel that this provides evidence in favor of the Flood?

I believe that I gave the evidence of Mount Diablo wrong. Geologists in the bay area of California believe that Mount Diablo, near Walnut Creek, CA is realy upside down. Not only is it upside down but the rock formation in Mount Diablo do not fit the area where the mountain is situated. The rocks and earth, which is part sand and lome, the geologists say is from Southern CA near the town of Mojova, CA. Not only then is the mountain upside down it came from a totally different area of CA. I am no geologist either and I can't blame anyone for not believing in the flood for the fact that there is no way of disposing of water. If there was indeed 15 cubits of water over the tops of the mountains there would still have to be the same amont of water today. I am not trying to convince anyone that there was a flood, I am only sharing what information that I have read and prayed about that tend to make a person think twice about there being a flood. It was not water however that flooded the earth it was ice that covered the mountains by 15 cubits would only cover the lowest parts of the earth with the same amount since ice, not plain water, would follow the contour of the earth and not seek its own level. We have to realize that if it was truly ice and venus broke the canopy open by its tremondous gravational pull, being only 25 to 30 thousand miles from the earth not only broke the ice canopy open allowancing it to fall on the earth but did indeed create many of our mountain ranges by orogeny. I would like to have you also ponder a verse out of St. Peter

2 Peter 3: 5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the wword of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
6. Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.
I take those two verses to mean that the earth was standing out of the water, is speaking of the ice canopy or the water above the atmosphere, or out of the water. The earth standing in the water; was just the one body of water that was on the earth. And if there was only one body of water on the earth then the earth was NOT divided into separate continents.
There are many books on the subject of the flood and also the mountain building books on Orogeny. Take a little time to look them up.

Whatever the purpose of the example, I'd have to say it isn't evidence for the flood. Rather, it's a result of some fairly "normal" geologic activity:

The oldest rocks are located in the central and highest peaks. As you proceed downslope, away from the summit, the rocks are younger. The older core rocks were formed far at sea at a spreading ocean rift zone, as much as 165 million years ago. As a part of moving tectonic plates, they were brought to the North American continent and into a subduction zone. Part of this ocean crust and overlying sediments were scraped off the subducting plate and forced under some sedimentary material already here. This area was later uplifted, pushing up the coastal range. Meanwhile, before that happened, much of California was an inland sea, rising and falling from one ice age to the next, and into which rivers deposited the sediments. Ultimately these sedimentary layers were compressed into solid rock, typically sandstone and shale. About four million years ago the Diablo region was low rolling hills.
About two million years ago, the same pressures that break the earth along the San Andreas fault began to form a large-scale compressional fold. The raised sedimentary layers were eroded away and tilted up and now they wrap around the harder, older mountain core. The tilted sedimentary layers now stand almost vertically is places such as Rock City, Castle Rock, Fossil Ridge, and Devil's Slide. Erosion has removed thousands of feet of what was overlying material, exposing the core as we know Mount Diablo, and carving fascinating features as wind caves and tunnels.

2

[_Sethbag]

Grampa75, when you say you've prayed about this stuff, would you say the witness you have received from God about it is of the same nature as the witness you received from the Holy Spirit that the Book of Mormon was true?