Evolution Impossible (18 page)

24
. A.C. Scott and J.H. Calder, “Carboniferous Fossil Forests,”
Geology Today,
vol. 10, no. 6 (1994): p. 213–217.

25
. C.F.K. Diessel,
Coal-bearing Depositional Systems
(Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1992), p. 390.

26
. D.I.M. Macdonald and J.E. Francis, “The Potential for Cretaceous Coal in Antartica,” in P.J. McCabe and J.T. Parrish, editors,
Controls on the Distribution and Quality of Cretaceous Coals,
The Geological Society of America Inc., Bolder, Colorado, 1992, p. 385–393.

27
. Snelling,
Earth’s Catastrophic Past,
p. 566–567.

28
. H.G. Coffin, “Erect Floating Stumps in Spirit Lake, Washington,”
Geology,
vol. 11 (1983): p. 298–299.

29
. Derek V. Ager,
The New Catastrophism
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 49.

30
. Steven A. Austin, editor,
Grand Canyon, Monument to Catastrophe
(Santee, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 1994), p. 37–38.

31
. H.J. Pachur and S. Kröpelin, “Wadi Howar: Paleoclimatic Evidence from an Extinct River System in the Southeastern Sahara,”
Science,
vol. 237 (1987): p. 298–300; B.D. Shaw, “Climate, Environment and Prehistory in the Sahara,”
World Archaeology,
vol. 8, no. 2 (1976): p. 142.

32
. R.L. Hooke, “Lake Manly Shorelines in the Eastern Mojave Desert, California,”
Quaternary Research,
vol. 52 (1999): p. 328–336; A.J. Sutcliffe,
On the Track of Ice Age Mammals
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 22.

33
. Michael J. Oard,
An Ice Age Caused by the Genesis Flood
(El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 1990), p. 97; see also, Michael Oard,
Frozen in Time
(Green Forest, AR: Master Books Inc., 2004).

34
. J. Jouzel, J.R. Petit, and D. Raynaud, “Palaeoclimatic Information from Ice Cores: the Vostok Records,”
Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,
vol. 81, 1990, p. 349–355.

35
. D. Paillard, “Glacial Cycles: Toward a New Paradigm,”
Reviews of Geophysics,
vol. 39, no. 3 (2001): p. 325–346.

36
. Michael J. Oard,
The Frozen Record
(Santee, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 2005).

37
. W. Dansgaard, H.B. Clausen, N. Gundestrup, et al., “Dating and Climatic Interpretation of Two Deep Greenland Ice Cores,”
Greenland Ice Core: Geophysics, Geochemistry, and the Environment,
Geophysical Monograph, No. 33, 1985, American Geophysical Union, p. 71–76.

38
. M. Oard,
Frozen in Time
(Green Forest, AR: Master Books Inc., 2004), p. 33–46, 69–106.

39
. L. Vardiman, “An Analytic Young-earth Flow Model of Ice Sheet Formation During the “Ice Age,”
Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Creationism,
Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, PA, 1994, p. 561–568.

40
. A.A. Snelling,
Earth’s Catastrophic Past,
Volumes 1 & 2 (Dallas, TX: Institute for Creation Research, 2009).

Chapter 8

Historical Evidence for a Worldwide Flood

In the early 1800s at universities such as Oxford and Harvard, the geological interpretation of the rock strata was taught in the context of Noah’s Flood.
¹
This Flood account was preserved in the ancient Hebrew book
Genesis,
which is believed to have been written by Moses, an adopted heir to the Egyptian throne who lived around 1526 to 1406
B.C
.
²
His account, in summary, describes how around 2303
B.C
.
³
fountains from deep within the earth opened up and began to spew out flood waters, combining with a 40-day rain event. The water rose and covered the earth, destroying everything living on the land. A man by the name of Noah and his wife and their three sons and their wives, eight people in total, and two of every kind of animal, were saved by going into a very large wooden boat often referred to as Noah’s ark (Gen. 6:9–8:18). The Genesis account is written in a substantially factual and historical way, even giving the day and the month that the Flood began. It states that water covered the earth for 150 days and that the water then slowly receded over the next 150 days. It describes the land drying out and Noah’s family and the animals leaving the ark after an additional 70 days (Gen. 7:24–8:13).

The Genesis account records Noah being told by “God” that a flood was coming that would destroy the earth, and that “God” told Noah to build the boat to save his family and the animals. Because of the miraculous nature of the account, this “flood” is often regarded as a religious myth. Consequently, most geologists and earth scientists now dismiss the idea of a recent worldwide flood as not being historical or scientific. However, if we examine the information we have available to us at the present time, there is a surprisingly large amount of both historical and scientific evidence to support this report of a catastrophic global flood in ancient times. So rather than glibly dismiss the Genesis record, I beg the reader’s indulgence to examine this evidence in the remainder of this chapter.

Firstly, the traditions of many ancient peoples from all over the world preserve in one form or another the account of a worldwide flood, from which only a few people were saved. Archaeologist professor André Parrot, who served as director in chief of the National Museums of France, explains that there are both legendary type narratives about a massive flood, such as the
Epic of Gilgamesh
, as well as brief references to the Flood as a historic fact, such as in the king lists on the Weld-Blundell Prism.
⁴
In the Sumerian narrative of the Flood, a fragment of which was found at Nippur in Babylonia and dated back to the 19th century
B.C.
, the gods decided to send a flood to destroy the human race, but the king Ziusudra is saved in a giant ship that he has built in accordance with instructions given to him by a god who has taken pity on him. In the Assyrian version, found on cuneiform tablets discovered in Nineveh in the library of Ashurbanipal, who lived in the seventh century
B.C.
, a hero by the name of Gilgamish goes in search of Utnapishtim who survived the flood. Utnapishtim tells Gilgamish the story of the flood, how the god Ea advised him to build a vessel to a specified plan and bring his family, craftsmen, and animals into it. A flood and storm is then unleashed and the whole world is submerged and mankind is destroyed. The boat later comes to rest on a mountain and several birds are sent out. When one of the birds, a raven, does not return, the survivors leave the ark.

The ancient Greek literature also describes this Flood, which is explicitly mentioned by Pindar, who lived in the fifth-century
B.C.
, with a full version found in the compendium
Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus
.
⁵
In the Greek account, the god Zeus decides to destroy the human race, but King Deucalion is advised by his father Prometheus to build an ark in which he and his wife can survive. The rains come and flood the land, and after floating for nine days the ark comes to rest on a mountain.

A Roman version is recorded by Ovid in
Metamorphoses Book 1
. Here again the gods decide to destroy humanity, which has become corrupt, by sending a great flood. Only Deucalion and Pyrra were saved in a boat so they could become the new parents of humankind.
⁶

The Flood is also mentioned in the Sanskrit
Shatapatha Brahmana
of the sixth century. This story from ancient India tells of Manu, who was advised by a fish that a flood was coming that would destroy the whole of mankind. He was told to build a boat, and during the flood the fish towed the boat to a resting place on a mountaintop.
⁷

The Mande people of Mali in central west Africa have a creation myth about an ark that landed on a mountain. This ark contained the original eight ancestors of humans and all the first animals and plants.
⁸
The Arandan aborigines of northern Australia have a dreamtime story of creation that has gone wrong and was cleansed by a flood.
⁹
The Arikara Indians of the American plains have a story that tells of giants that had no respect for their Creator and were destroyed by a great flood with only a few good giants preserved.
¹⁰

David Leeming, professor emeritus of English and comparative literature, and Margaret Leeming, at the University of California at Santa Barbara, describe many other Flood accounts from the traditions of the peoples of the American continents. Examples include the Eskimos; Netsilik people of Greenland; Cheyenne Indians of the American plains; Navajo Indians of the American Southwest, who are believed to have settled there around
A.D.
1000; Yuma and Pima Indians of Arizona; Pomo and Salina Indians of California; Ipurina people of Brazil; the ancient Myscas people of Peru; and the ancient Quiché Mayan people of Guatemala, whose civilization dates back to at least
A.D.
300.
¹¹

Like the
Genesis record, many of the other accounts of the Flood involve animals, the mention of a rainbow, birds being sent out, a vessel landing on a mountain, and the Flood being worldwide and decreed by the gods due to the wickedness of mankind at the time. Some versions, including the Genesis account, specifically mention eight as the number of people saved.

Professor Parrot also lists sources of Flood stories from regions around the world: China, southern Asia, Sumatra, Borneo, Australia, New Guinea, Polynesia, Melanesia, and both north and south American continents, and in the folklore of eastern Russia, Rumania, Lithuania, and Wales. He points out that in most of the stories there are constant features such as the saving in a vessel of a remnant group of people.
¹²
Likewise, Dr. Robert Young, LL.D., who compiled a concordance to the Bible in 1879, comments that Noah was called Yao or Fo-Hi (Fu Hsi) in the ancient Chinese literature, and Deucalion, Xisuthrus, etc., in other accounts.
¹³

Further Chinese evidence for the historical accuracy of the Genesis record appears to have been preserved in the pictogram symbols of an ancient Chinese script. Stanford University–educated Chinese art historian Dr. Ginger T. Chock and co-authors discuss both these symbols and a number of ancient accounts, concluding that they support the Genesis account, including the Flood and the name of Noah.
¹⁴
The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, at the University of Oxford, also notes that accounts of a universal Flood occurring in antiquity is widespread around the world in both oral and written sources.
¹⁵

Overall, the Genesis account would probably be viewed by most scholars as being the most credible and historically accurate. For example, the country Egypt, referred to in ancient manuscripts as the “land of Egypt,” that is, the land where Egypt settled, and sometimes as the “land of Ham” (Ps. 105:23, 27), is actually named after Noah’s grandson Mizraim, who was the son of Ham, the youngest son of Noah. The name “Egypt,” which is used today, is the modern Greek version of Mizraim. The country of Egypt is often listed on maps as Misr, which is the national Egyptian name.
¹⁶
This is very strong evidence that Egypt and Ham were real people, as traditionally in ancient times, towns and countries were named after the actual people who founded them.

The Genesis account is also corroborated by an Egyptian historian by the name of Manetho, who was a priest in the temple at Heliopolis during the Greek era around 270
B.C
. According to Herodotus, the Heliopolitans were said to be the most learned of the Egyptians.
¹⁷
Manetho recorded the history of Egypt at that time and wrote that “after the flood,” Ham, the son of Noah, begat “Aegyptus or Mestraim,” who was the first to establish himself in the area now known as Egypt at the time when the tribes began to disperse.
¹⁸
In one of Manetho’s other works,
Book of Sothis
, he wrote that this dispersion took place five years after the birth of Peleg, who was a great-great-great-grandson of Noah, born 101 years after the Flood.
¹⁹
That is, the tribes began to separate about 106 years after the Flood, or roughly around 2195
B.C
.