2.1 The Flood

There are essentially two options that are given in relation to the flood; a worldwide flood or a local flood (more than one sub-option is available for this case). There are numerous problems with a worldwide flood and some of these problems also apply to a local flood. Some of the concerns cited against their being a flood in relatively recent times are given below and they can be split into two categories. The first two headings given below are problems with a local flood, while all the headings apply to a worldwide flood.

1. Archaeological Evidence

Flood level strata have been discovered in the ancient Iraqi cities of Ur, Kish and Fara but they do not correlate with each other, nor do they even cover the whole of each city. If the flood were local to this area then we would not expect the evidence that has been found. It may be possible that the flood were local to some other place, such as the black sea filling up which some suggest as a plausible location, but no conclusive evidence has been found there either. Archaeological evidence for a relatively large, if not global, flood remains elusive.

2. The size of the Ark

Wood only has limited strength compared to other materials that are used to make boats. The length of the Ark, as recorded in the bible is 450 feet. This is 50% longer than the largest relatively stable wooden boats built in modern times. These more recent boats of around 300 feet in length flex so much they have to be constantly pumped out because it is impossible to seal them from the water under them. Stronger materials like iron must be used for large boats.

Even an ark 450 feet long is not large enough to carry all the animals and their foodstuffs for the 1 year and 10 days that they were on the ark.

3. Gathering the animals

Assuming a worldwide flood we need to consider how the animals got to and from the ark. Some animals like sloths cannot travel quickly over land; others like kangaroos cannot travel across oceans. Some like pandas and aphids need special foods and others like small flightless birds need to live in isolation on islands or they are easy prey. If humans were to carry the animals with them as they repopulated the globe then why take a rattle snake or a grizzly bear with you?

An assessment of the number of animals also needs to be made. It is not clear what is meant by a ‘kind’, but based on the diversity of animals we find today it must be fairly close to what is now called a species. The timing of the flood is very recent geologically and natural mutation cannot account for the differences in DNA between animals today if a category higher up the taxonomic rank is used. The animals included are those that creep along the ground, this includes mammals, birds, reptiles and anthropoids. If, as some claim, the flood laid down the fossils (flood geology) then all extinct animals in these categories must also have been taken onto the ark, and the number of extinct species found increases every year. The animals taken also need to have been adult to have the required skills to live in the wild and pass on to their offspring.

Once the animals had got to the ark they then had to be loaded, which took 7 days. This seems unlikely given the huge number of animals involved.

After they were on the ark they need to be cared for which again presents problems. Animals are adapted to their habitat such that they cannot live in different conditions. There are cave dwelling anthropoids that need 100% humidity or they quickly die, a yak cannot live in temperate conditions. Some have short life spans and would need to reproduce in the 375 days they were on the ark. Snakes need live bait for food.

4. The Flood Itself

A global flood around 4000 years ago should provide evidence we simply do not find. Ice cores taken from the poles show no evidence of a global flood. If the ice caps had floated off, buoyant above the water, then they would not have regrown yet. In fact the Greenland ice cap would not regrow in the conditions since the last glacial period (ice age), around 10,000 years ago. No trace of the flood has been found in cores from the sea floor and there is no evidence of a flood in tree rings which date back more than 10,000 years.

5. The Geological Record

If the sedimentary layers were laid down over a long period of time this would prove that some kind of evolutionary process occurred. To avoid this conclusion some suggest that Noah’s flood caused the geology we find today (flood geology) but this goes against much evidence that can’t be explained by a global flood.

The following points need to be addressed if the flood caused our geology:

• Why is extremely good sorting observed? Why didn't at least one dinosaur make it to the high ground with the elephants?
• The fossil record is sorted in an order convenient for evolution.
• The relative positions of plants and other non-motile life. Why don't any modern-looking plants appear that low in the geological column?
• Why some groups of organisms, such as molluscs, are found in many geologic strata.
• Why organisms which are very similar hydro-dynamically are still perfectly sorted.
• Why extinct animals which lived in the same niches as present animals didn't survive as well.
• Why small organisms dominate the lower strata, whereas fluid mechanics says they would sink slower and thus end up in upper strata.
• Why artefacts such as footprints and burrows are also sorted.
• Why no human artefacts are found except in the very uppermost strata. If, at the time of the Flood, the earth was populated by people with technology for shipbuilding, why were none of their tools or buildings mixed with trilobite or dinosaur fossils?
• How do surface features appear far from the surface? Deep in the geologic column there are formations which could have originated only on the surface, such as; rain drops, river channels, wind-blown dunes, glacial deposits, Burrows, in-place trees, soil, desiccation cracks, footprints, meteorites, meteor craters and cave systems.

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