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Is the story of Noah's flood just another ancient myth, borrowed from earlier pagan texts, or a record of a real historical catastrophe? In this episode of the Cold-Case Christianity podcast, J. Warner Wallace applies his investigative experience as a cold-case homicide detective to examine the Genesis flood account. He compares it with stories like Atrahasis and the Epic of Gilgamesh, traces worldwide flood traditions, and asks whether all these ancient memories point back to a single, real event. Along the way, he explores questions about miracles, philosophical naturalism, geology, the scope of the flood (global or regional), the ark's feasibility, and the moral difference between the biblical God and the capricious gods of other ancient cultures.
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Welcome to the cold case Christianity podcast where veteran cold case homicide
detective investigates the truth of the Christian worldview. J. Warner Wallace is a
date line featured detective Christian apologists and best-selling author this
weekly show applies real investigative tools to the claims of Christianity.
Thanks for joining us at the cold case Christianity podcast. I'm J. Warner Wallace.
Okay today we're gonna be talking a little bit about a lot about for an hour.
We're going to be talking about the flood Noah's the story of Noah in the
Old Testament and we're gonna be covering a few issues related to that and I
part of it is because I get so darn many emails and all of our I had one
presentation years ago that I did at a church and you know when you present to
a church you have a very finite kind of time allowing allowance rather and
kind of a tight structure. You're coming in behind a worship team you're
gonna be given a short amount of time and then you're you know whatever the
requirements people are gonna have a view on the stage and you're gonna be doing
this over and over again for several services and that video has been so
popular on our website that I often think wow I've had known and surprised
actually that people are still this interested in the flood story but I think a
lot of it is because it is in some ways easy to attack from a skepticism
perspective both in terms of the scope you know can you really get every animal on
an arc the idea that there are other ancient stories related to floods and the
fact that it is so utterly supernatural in its claims and before I even start to
talk about any of this that is the thing I think we've got to talk about first I
get it and really you could do a podcast on every single miracle because all of
them certainly seem absurd to philosophical naturalists if you deny there is a
god of the universe who'd create everything from nothing and I held that
position for years that if you're going to insert a miracle into something you
are calling history you've just jumped a shark you're no longer doing history
you're doing mythology it's a category difference it's a genre difference we
have no room for anything supernatural or miraculous in the study of history or
in the study of science these are two areas that we are as we just decided are
absolutely must be strictly limited and cannot must be entirely philosophically
natural they cannot you cannot use anything outside of space time matter of
physics and chemistry to describe anything in science or anything in history we
just decided that's out of bounds now of course that is a relative you look at
the entire written history of humans the the period in which humans have been
writing that is a relatively recent development that has not always been
true the ancients often considered all kinds of things that they thought were
normal and and I think there's and so for me I can tell you as I was reading
through scripture if you've heard my story I had to kind of ask the question do
I have can I hold these miracles with an open hand can I hold the claims in
the New Testament gospels with an open hand until I bear I just checked the
reliability I want in other words am I going to use the supernatural claims of
these writers as evidence against their reliability altogether or can I put
those to the side for a second because if there is a personal being who could
blink everything in the universe into existence then the most unbelievable
miracle is Genesis one and anything after that anything in the New Testament is
a super super small potato miracle compared to Genesis one and I was
somebody who believed in Big Bang cosmology as do most astrophysicist today and
big bangs require big bangers so I think you're and if that's a personal being
that caused the Big Bang why then at least we have to be fair about opening our
yes you could ask the question why would God act so supernaturally in the world
at one point in human history and then seem to be almost hidden in other
points in human history good question different question though and so the
only question here is so I think part of what people do is they they and I don't
think we help ourselves because we often illustrate these kinds of miraculous
events you know I've got grandchildren now and they're very young and they are
interested in the claims of the Bible and we read them and of course they are
illustrated like a children's book and I can't I can't take how many times I
still continue to see people talk about the flood or talk about the arc and
they use the literature they use the artwork that is used for children's
books as they're making their their as they're talking about it look we don't
need to continue to illustrate this as though it's a fantasy or a children's
fairy tale this was an historical event I think we need to give it all the
seriousness when we illustrate it and when we depict it that we would give any
other historical event and so I what I want to do in this podcast is kind of
come at it as I can if I can if I try to build a case the same way you would
try to reconstruct events from whatever minimal evidence you have and cold
cases often are far more minimal in their evidence said than current murders
because that's why they're cold they're cold because they had a they they're
very very thin in terms of their evidential structure so I get that and I just
want you to know that when I first read through I often wonder well you know I
came into it convinced by a pastor that Jesus was smart enough to read what
Jesus had to say and so I read through the New Testament and and there's gonna
be a lot of miracles in the New Testament and I had to stop for a second so I
get back up back up back up this this I'm not being I can't go any further if you
start off in Matthew you're starting with a virgin conception okay really so
I really need to examine my own philosophically natural bias before I could get
started in any of this but I am a skeptic that way and I started off that way
now I here's what I would have been just like anybody else who would have
been skeptical on those days and I was just talking to a friend of mine who I
worked with you know decades ago when he knew me when I was an atheist and and he
he said to me I always saw him as a fellow committed atheist and he said not to
be honest I was always agnostic you were the jerk I was kind of didn't really
care and it didn't seem like I'm the fence but you were the one who was
adamantly against it wasn't me and I thought well I always saw him as a
colleague in this because we would always tease these people who recruit you
know we meet who are Christians many of whom are the people we were taking to
jail anyway back to this I would have said hey you know Genesis is not the only
story of this this is just a common ancient myth and I would have also argued
that modern geology just proves a global flood I would have argued that the
Bible in general is scientifically naive I would have argued that that a
story is like Gilgamesh and Atrahesis which are similar stories are are much
older and so Genesis coming afterwards just copied them those are the things I
would have said and so I want to do in this particular podcast is just
accomplished a couple of things number one why are there so many flood stories
why are they so common all around the globe and and to do these more do these
more ancient manuscripts or or stone carvings we have or any document or any
kind of record we have of say Atrahesis or Gilgamesh does that actually
demonstrate that the Genesis story is myth and and does Scripture in any way
align with the world the way we see it today so that we can because look in the
end we want to see if it if if generally speaking you know that someone has
been truthful then their their credibility is far easier to to rely on right
because you they've been reliable in the past so I think we could should look and
see if Scripture aligns with the world we actually live in so here we go we're
just going to jump right in I want to talk first about all these flood stories
that are around the world and there's there's a bunch of these these these
world-wide distributions I could go through all of them but I don't know that
they are let me just give you in kind of a broad brush description of some of
these because this is something I would have thrown out and lots of scholars
and lots of researchers have have documented this this is a book that we're
trying to do in an hour but but you'll see that they are you'll see him
Mesopotamia you'll see him in Egypt you'll see him in Greece India China you'll
see him also though and the Native North and South American continents you'll
even see them in the Pacific Islands now they are dense when you do the
stories and you kind of record all of them and you put them on a pin map what
you're going to discover is that they are does it by the way this is not me I do
not think that all of the the diversity of this means that everyone is
recording an independent story of what they experienced because you'll see
the density is in the Mediterranean it's in Europe like Scandinavia and the
Netherlands and Germany Spain and Italy you'll see it clustered in Central and
East Asia and China in India and Thailand and Siberia you'll see it and some
of the Pacific Islands and among dozens of North American tribes and which
you see is you see a migration pattern here that in other words the oldest
stories cluster in the area around the Mesopotamian region and then the later
ones you find appear in regions that were settled later right like Europe and
then finally the Americas and all this does is it matches the migration
patterns of people who carried either a common story that was a common myth or a
common story because it actually happened and everyone had a memory of it
happening and what was at least the known world at the time and look if we're
gonna go back too far in time even if you said no this is a I will tell you
upfront there's lots of people who both of whom both camps would call
themselves Christians that are doing their best to read the text and they will
disagree about whether this is a regionally global a global flood or that
devastates everything in the world or if it is a devastating local flood that
destroys the known world I don't care where you land on that but if you hold to
a global flood well remember humans were only living in certain regions in
the globe and so of course the story would start in those regions and migrate
out and what you discover when you read those stories is these are my numbers
and again I this is one of those areas I would love to do much deeper dive to
get precise fractional numbers here but about 88% of these stories will describe
that there's a family that was favored in some way that is saved as a result of
their actions the same way you see Noah's family about 60 right around 65 67
percent were warned in advance that this flood was going to happen and same
same number about the same number connect the flood to some sense of divine
judgment for something that humans have done that it's not just like random
whether you know it's not like a random no it's actually a judgment flood and a
bunch describe this not better than 95% describe it as specifically as a
flood I mean there's lots of stories of judgment even in scripture but this
one the story of a flood and not a fire not something else that destroys
people is in 95% of these stories and about 70% show that some people are
gonna survive because they escaped in a boat that is the main the main story
line also you'll see that about 67% also preserve animals usually with the
family that is that survives by using the boat and about 60 well 57% and the
story ends with the boat ending up on top of the mountain so again these are
stories that begin in this area around the Mesopotamian region and then they
migrate out as people so if you mapped those stories here's what you'd see
you'd see that they fan out basically about the same way that human migration
over history fans out and that's exactly what I'd expect if all of us
descend from a small group who actually survive an actual catastrophic flood and
then retold it again and again in their own language as they they moved away
from that location and we believe as Christians and we don't believe in
macro evolution in the sense that we can get from just genetic material up to
different species we believe though that within a species people are created
in advance with a template that allows them to to flex within the species so
they can survive that is part of God's design for us as a species and so as we
move out we develop different languages we start to adapt to our
environments we become thicker skin thinner skin darker skin lighter skin
taller shorter all these different people groups who are adapting to the
regions of which they live are telling the same story and that regional
difference starts to show up as you start to assess these stories hundreds and
thousands of years later okay so now of all of these stories why am I focused
most like as a skeptic I would have always thrown out gougamish I think it's
because it's an easier it seems like it's it's very well know I knew enough
about it as an atheist to be able to talk about it but so look there with all
these stories that are out there these these you know hundreds of stories
they're across the globe why would be why would skeptics like me focus on
atrahesis and gougamish so much well because these are kind of the best
preserved and the oldest written flood accounts in the ancient Near East and
they're basically look they're in the same region as Israel so so what what
critics will say is well these these preceded them these are the templates that
that whoever crafted Genesis they would deny that Smoses whoever whatever is
set of mythological nut jobs who wrote Genesis well they're they're just
basing their material on something that existed before Genesis which is
atrahesis and gougamish those stories were out there these are the templates
and and that's not how I interpret them but this is how the critics would have
seen them okay so what I want to do is I want to walk into that those two
stories first and I want to let you know if we were kind of in a courtroom here
let's let them testify first let's see what they have to say and and then we'll
go from there but let me just say that although these documents are older and
this is something that I try to make a point in the one video I have online about
this what I'm in front of an audience and doing this if you can see it on a
timeline it's helpful so we have a sense that oh yeah Genesis account that's
the third account these other accounts come before it so if you were to create
a visual timeline I want you to imagine it would be since we're doing a podcast
and it's just audio I want you to imagine the timeline imagine a a long
timeline that starts on your left that's way back when and it goes off to
your right and the arrow moves off the screen and that's up to the common age
whatever may be okay great so if you look and dated where we would typically put
the Genesis account it's going to be probably you know this is difficult related
to some of the older accounts like Gilgamesh because the question becomes I see
scholars will put those one before the other the other before the first one I
mean where you debate date these matters most scholars will put the Genesis
account around 1400 BC Gilgamesh could be most people will put that around
1300 BC but I've seen these dates flipped a little bit moved a little bit so
they're pretty close they're within a hundred years of each other and we're
talking about how many thousands of years ago in order to date this could be
off by a fraction and it would make a hundred year difference yes which of
these comes first even if you said how they're almost simultaneous all this is
grant for the sake of argument that Gilgamesh even comes before the Genesis
account just for sake of argument so let's put the Genesis account at 1300 I
think it's probably older but let's just put it at 1300 let's put the Gilgamesh
account now that means that it would be on your timeline and now you've got to
go to the left of that because further in the past that puts your let's put
this put Gilgamesh there at 1400 BC okay now atrahasis that account you're
gonna put even further back it's a 17th century BC around 1625 so I'll
grant you that these are all pretty close if you look at the scope of history
and how we date things and try to figure out how ancient something is to be
within a couple hundred years when you're talking about something that's
3500 years ago that is you know it's kind of hard to be certain but I'll just
give you a second argument let's imagine that the newest account is Genesis that
the one that's a little older than that is Gilgamesh and the one that's even
older still is atrahasis okay so now you kind of can see your timeline right the
most ancient the furthest one to the left is going to be atrahasis then Gilgamesh
then Genesis so the argument is well clearly they're copying these they're
dependent upon one another well keep in mind that none of these claim to be
eyewitness accounts none of them do they all of them claim to record an event
that did not occur it's not like that it occurred prior to any of them being
written at around 2200 BC so so all of them it doesn't really matter the order
does not matter in which they come to say for example well I can the the
Genesis account is clearly a fraud because it it's not the first account well
none of them are trying to describe something that it's not as though the thing
happens in 1625 atrahasis or the first claim is written in 1625 all of them are
purportedly writing something a writing about something that occurred that was
handed down to them given to them by somebody and it occurred around 2200 BC now
why does that matter because I think often you know this the idea that yep
these because these are earlier it demonstrates that there's no all three of
these are recording something that happened before any of them wrote about it
and then the question becomes is that is one just stealing from the other is it
just is a dis plagiarism and that's going to be in that's why I want to take a
second to talk about the two accounts that are typically identified as the
more ancient accounts remember the event is a single event that precedes all
three of these accounts of these accounts so let's just talk right now and I
want to show you some of the contrasts here also as you listen to these accounts
from atrahasis which is the Babylonian flood account and from the epic of
Gilgamesh I want you to think about the nature of the story yeah you know it's
interesting that the the Genesis story includes this supernatural claim that
God could flood this entire could create such a flood that would be
required that he could that somehow these animals could be collected in such
a way but if you start to read through the other accounts both atrahasis and
Gilgamesh the level of mythology is dramatically more pronounced the
Genesis account looks calm by comparison it looks reasonable by comparison so
let's talk about first atrahasis this is a Babylonian flood account
basically it's an old Babylonian epic it's around 17th century like I said
1625 is often a date you'll see given to it and it's preserved on multiple
tablets and now what does it cover it's not just about this flood it it's got a
lot of stuff in it related to the creation of humans different kind of
population crisis that happened during the earlier history of humans in the
region and then this great flood now what does it say well in terms of the
creation story it basically says that in a sense these lesser gods are forced
to dig these canals that and do all this heavy labor and as a result of being
forced to do this kind of heavy labor they revolt and the higher gods this
is a polytheistic system decide to create humans from clay mixed with the
blood of a slain god so that humans can take over the labor so they're
creative for the purpose of taking over the labor of these lesser gods who were
complaining about they had revolted now along the way these humans become very
very overpopulated and and they're the they make so much noise that one of the
gods and Leo is disturbed by the amount of noise they're making and it's not
as though they they're doing anything other than making noise but it's it's
annoying it's annoying to a new and Leo and so there's a solution he sends a
plague and then he sends a drought and then he sends a famine and all three of
these thin out the population of these noisy humans and each time there's
someone one of these actions that thins out the human population that one of
the major characters in the story yeah secretly tells another major figure in
the story atra hazes how to basically appease the relevant whoever the god is
who's involved with that in that particular disaster okay and at some point
and Leo who is at this point completely frustrated by the fact that every
time he sends some act or some you know a famine or a drought or a plague that
supposed to thin the population atra hazes finds a way to kind of subvert this
thing he's so frustrated that he basically says I'm gonna destroy everyone by
way of a flood and at some point in this story yeah instructs basically
describes and tells atra hazes how to number one tear down his house and build
a large boat and by the way it is rectangular in many of these stories as
are described that we're gonna come back to that's important it's a sealed with
pitch so it can float in some way and he's told he's gonna bring his family he's
told I want you to get a collection of animals and put them on the boat and
then this flood lasts for about a week seven days seven nights all the humans
outside the boat all the humans who aren't floating in the boat are destroyed and
at the end of it atra hazes he offers a sacrifice and the gods then gather
like flies over the sacrifice because they have been without offerings this
entire time and they are starving and then in legal it's so mad that someone
survived and he ends up being in an argument with Ia and the whole point is the
new plan is that they're gonna control population from this point on with
shorter lifespans with infant mortality with with people who die now they'll
be some people be infertile okay so what's the difference here well the whole
idea from that by the way I do believe if if what these are these early
creations these early stories about the flood if what these are is the same
true historical event that's being interpreted through different people groups
in different regions well then I don't even have a problem with similarities at
all that's the whole point of this is that we could argue that the fact that
there are numerous descriptions of something that's pretty close is in fact
an evidence that something did happen the only question is what how does each
group interpret what happened how does each group interpret the entire event
and so here what you see is that the interpretation is slightly different right
you've got this basically it's just that there's too many of you and you're
making a bunch of noise not that they were involved in morally
reprehensible behavior that's a big difference and by the way in all of
these ancient mythologies what you will find in Judaism is that Yahweh is an
exemplar of what the moral code should be which you will see instead in these
polytheistic systems is that the gods who are involved are just as sideways just
as reprehensible as humans often they do all the petty childish jealous
things that humans do and so here they're willing to destroy others because it's
too dang noisy there's too many making too much noise it's not about a
judgment between a divine being of of moral perfection and fallen humans and you
see this here that the gods are very human here they in the story of of
Atraha says you'll see that the gods they show fear they have human impulses like
hunger they are jealous and divided they are dependent by the way on human
food humans in this story are not image bearers they don't have that kind of
dignity that they instead they're just laborers they're just replacement
laborers for the gods who were complaining so again the moral nature of the
story is very different but again also this is a regional people group that's
trying to interpret something and has been separated from the group that
knows the truth well then you're going to get interpretation of events that
doesn't that lacks the under the undergirding truth of why these things
happen let's go to the Gilgamesh tablet 11 describes what is known as
Utna Pishnam's flood and the idea here is that this epic of Gilgamesh
is really about this this desire this quest for fame
this quest for immortality on the part of Gilgamesh and the flood story appears
just really as a kind of a late addition not an addition but it's part of this
backstory of Utna Pishnam so this is jump right in that basically to give you a
rough outline here Gilgamesh is fearing for his own mortality
basically because he's got a friend named Incdu who who dies and he
ends up looking for this character known as Utna Pishnam who was able to
escape death so he's because he's afraid of dying himself he now wants to
consult this Utna Pishnam and the gods involved in this story
have already decided to destroy humanity but mostly again
this is where it's very similar to the story
under Atrahesis because of their noisy disturbances
and again they also swear they're not going to reveal his plan to anyone
now Ia in this story remember they are sharing kind of a regional origin
so that although they're separated from the the stories of Yahweh
they have constructed their own story Ia it basically instructs Utna Pishnam
that hey this is the judgment's coming and you need to they're
wanting to get rid of all you humans because you make so much noise
so you need to build a boat and so he does and this boat
this is interesting because it's you haven't already talked about how the last
boat was rectangular well this boat is designed as an absolute square a cube
it's the same height it's the same length it's the same width on all sides
and it like the other boat we described is sealed with pitch
so um and it's loaded but kind of like the other one and the other uh
story with with the family and the people who built the boat the craftsman
the boat and the animals that are brought to the boat all of that is loaded
and of course here comes the flood it's this it here it's for six days
and seven nights and it turns out during this flood the gods themselves
are just um terrified they're trying to retreat to back when
they're they're crying they're retreating back to the sky
and in the end of this the boat rests on a mountain mountain
namouche and Utna Pishnam ends up releasing doves
the return releases a swallow who returns releases a raven that does not
return which indicates its dry land and then at the end of all this Utna Pishnam
offers a sacrifice so that part of the story is the same so what we see is this
this this memory of something that truly happened
and the question then becomes um how much access do you think each group has to
the other so that it's a copying taking place or are they simply
the same event being told as three groups uh two pretty closely related
and one that is not that that uh starts to divide from the other groups
and uh retains their version of the story anyway this version of the story
inlayla ends up being angry that anyone at all survived and then
again iia is upset with that they have an argument about this
and Utna Pishnam and his wife they end up being granted immortality
and they are placed at the edge of the world as immortals
and then um Gilgamesh is like this is his whole reason for
consulting this story this you're getting this story
only as a description from Utna Pishnam as to why it is he's an immortal
and when Gilgamesh learns that this is the way it occurred
he knows he can't do it the same way and so that's how this story ends okay
so differences here well the whole point here was the characters here
that survived the flood are immortals and it doesn't frame the the future of
humans it's a story really about one uh
couple that ends up being one family that ends up being coming in
mortals because they survived the flood and but like we do have here though
is a very similar uh because these two groups are related
pantheon of gods that are greedy that are needy that are uh
fighting amongst each other that are fearful that's the nature of the gods
now that does sound a little bit different does it not
but remember if the the core things are there just like we said
all of those stories of the flood have core elements they're the same
and is that because one is borrowing from the other or because each one
takes the true story and as they're separated from each other as population
groups separated they end up interpreting what they know to be true
in a number of different ways that that's what it comes down to
which of those is actually more likely you know that when we talk about the
flood story it's really about human evil not just
humans existing and making the kinds of noise that humans make
it's about human evil the earth was filled with
violence and in every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart
was only evil according to the scripture
and so he makes this decision he bring a flood why not because you guys are
just irritating us and we're just like you but we're irritating we have
more power than use of therefore we're going to get rid of you guys
it's because there's a singular god who is the foundation of all moral truth
who is morally perfect and has seen that his creation which is in his
image is so far afield that a judge a judgment has to occur
and Noah the one person who is what righteous and
blameless in his generation and his walking with god
is the one he's deciding to use now what's interesting about the
difference here if for no other reason if you were to compare
the vehicle by which this group is going to be saved
only one of the three kinds of boats would even float
and this is the one that's in the Genesis account
because its dimensions are such that if you're looking at cubits which is how
it's described in scripture and if each one's about 18 inches
this means this is a boat that is 450 feet by 75 feet by 45 feet
and that that that's a roughly a six to one ratio of length to width
that is not how the other boats are described one's described as a cube
and this is the kind of dimension that's required for the kind of stability
you see even today that six to one ratio in the barges that you're going to
see in any harbor the tankers you're going to see in any harbor
anywhere on the on the globe and here's described as having three decks
having a single door a single opening in a window and of course
who's going in will kinds pairs of every kind of
animal and know as family and there's actually a description in this
story unlike the others in which a reasonable account of how the flood might
occur all the fountains of the great deep burst forth and the windows of the
heavens were open and you have heavy rain for 40 days
and 40 nights well even even if you were to look at what's practically
possible to get the kind of rain levels you would need for this kind of global
flood to occur this makes more sense it would take longer
than the six days and seven nights that are described in the other stories
anyway so this this this is there's some serious time that they're having to
send spend on in this arc and then they end up all humans and
all the land animals if you're not a ocean bearing animal or a flying animal
they would be perishing outside the arc and then of course at the end of it all
god remembers no of course and he sends the winds and the things that dry out
all of the waters and it ends up on the mountains of
Ararat so there's that there's a difference now at the end I think it's very
interesting that Noah also sends a raven and then dubs the dubs return the
first time then it returns without all of leave a second time
and then it doesn't return the third time so in a very similar way
birds are used to see if there is land then of course at the end there's a
sacrifice so and at the end of that that sacrifice
and what god had to do he promises never to do again
then that's when you see the rainbow and then god does something he did with
Adam and he tells Noah to be fruitful and multiply
why because it turns out the role of humans on the Noah store even though
god is destroying all of these humans but but the the reason why he
destroys the humans his the fact that humans are are designed in the image of
god they're even described who's getting destroyed those who are in
complete and utter rebellion not just those who are making noise
so this has a moral trigger it's not it's about violence it's about corruption
it's not just about noise and there this is a monotheistic system as well
there are no human acting low kind of low moral bar
conflicting gods who are fearful who are are limited and they get hungry they
have to be fed and human dignity is much different here it's grounded in the
image of god compared to the other stories
and there is a return to a kind of an unchanging covenant a stable covenant
that is returned at the end of all this so what it seems to me
a one reasonable way to interpret what we're seeing in these three ancient
stories they're only separated by a couple hundred years in terms of their
writing and all of which try to describe an event that occurred a couple
hundred years before this they are basically independent
witnesses in widely separated cultures and they what are they recalling
the same catastrophic water event the same judgment from the gods the same
description of a single family and a boat in animals that land on a mountain
and what you have is contextualization everything else the differences in
the names the differences in the details even the local
theologies that emerged over those hundreds of years they are described in
the context of each story none of that is evidence that the event
didn't happen that is instead i think what you'd expect to happen in ancient
people groups that are separated enough that they remember the events
they remember the what's but they didn't always understand the wise
so all they could describe was the what accurately what happened but why it
happened that's where the differences come in it's not a difference about
what happened it's a difference about why it happened and that's because
they've been separated from the true grotto the true god of the universe
and they don't really understand why it happened but they do remember what
happened and that's what you're seeing here now look i am not a scholar but here's
what i do know is that and the question is always going to be from inside the
Christian family was this a universal flood that
every corner of the earth every part of the globe
or because the language and i don't want to get into all that but the language has
been interpreted one of two ways it couldn't mean that it was no it was
globally devastating in the sense that everything
that was known to live by the people group who is writing the account
was destroyed so there's an argument about whether it's a
devastating regional flood or is this a devastating global flood
now i have a tendency to help and that hold that with an open hand
i don't think that's a Christian essential i know i'm going to get a lot of
pushback on that and a lot of people who hold it as an essential belief
will say that it's a global flood but i also written i've seen people make
this argument on both sides and i think i you know if for 60 40 or 45 55 i'm
where you may lean on that i think just be honest about that i don't know
now are there some things that we see geologically
well this is the stuff that i typically see mentioned
all the kind of extensive sediment layers that people see across the
globe the the kind of that in these spanned different continents also
there's the sandstone like you see at the base of the grand canyon
you see those kinds of equivalents all around north america you see beyond
north america you see marine fossils in regions right now that you would say
well look these are either this that's way about how we
finding a marine fossil that far above sea level
it either means that that that mountain was pushed up or that the sea level dropped
but but either one of those could be reasonable and i think you do
see that they they've kind of suggest at least that large-scale
animals in the waters marine animals fish those kinds of things
were at least present at one point at that part of the continent
you'll also see people who will point to um
evidence of of of rapid um process of flooding
because again this would have to happen then over 40 days which is really
rapid in the history of the earth right that's like a
think of an eye and so the question then do we have any evidence
of anything happening that that rapidly of the rapid deposit for example
of um in in some layers that where you see
either large boulders or things you wouldn't expect
that are or some some evidence you could read
for kind of a high energy flooding or water flow that would move
something well there's lots of places in the world where people will point to
things like that and or you might see for example um
evidence in i've seen people talk about this evidence in
the strata where you've got the evidence of a quick burial or a quick
or things are quickly crushed or quickly uh buried as if they had been
flooded and they drowned um and i've even seen some discussion of what they
call planation surfaces they kind of odd that some people will interpret
these and say well this is something that would be consistent with um
flooding look look not being an expert in any of this let me tell you what i
what i see that debate to me it seems to be still a very valid debate and i'm
not going to land much on either one of those i think it was going to go back
and forth do we have to have evidence of a global
flood well if you're one of those Christians that reads through that ancient
Hebrew and says no it's actually consistent also with the devastating local
flood well then you don't even care about this argument but here's what i would
say it seems like non-Christian mainstream kind of geology
experts um they they're going to explain this in a
different way not with a global flood instead they're going to say this is
also consistent with you know rise and fall of shallow seas over
millions of years might do the same kind of thing
in other words they'll have another explanation for this
and even though the people who will look at the same geology and argue from a
Christian perspective or a Jewish perspective that the that the flood is the
best response that the thickness that kind of geographic spread of
bits of pieces of evidence and even this evidence i was talking about a
of rapid burial or rapid water movement of large items
that does fit better this idea of a global flood well these are two sides that
are continuing to debate and there seem to be yes could it have been caused by
a global flood sure yes could it have been caused by
transgressions and regressions of of shallow seas over millions of years
yeah so so how are we going to land that i mean i think that but here's what i
would say that it certainly could be interpreted
as a global flood is there another interpretation to share
but it doesn't exclude the possibility of a of a global flood
so here's what i would say if if you're committed
to the authority of scripture will you may still
find yourself in this continuum somewhere because the people i know who
believe it was a a local massively devastating flood
are just as committed to the to the authority of scripture as the people who
say nope it is a global flood and and although you may disagree with your
brother in Christ who holds to one view or the other
here's where we both agree the stuff we're seeing geologically
the rocks of the earth are full of evidence of catastrophic
damage activity water activity it's on a scale that it should at least give us
pause it it there's nothing in that global record
that would not be consistent with the idea that genesis is describing
this kind of flood event that again it may just be that genesis is describing
a local devastating flood event but either way
there's enough there for us to at least hold it with an open hand if you're
looking at geology now one of the things i did in the talk years ago with this
is i made a case of say look if you've got a witness
who has been right about 10 things and now he's going to offer
issue number 11 i think it's reasonable to infer from the fact that he did mention
the other 10 things correctly that you might be willing to trust him on
issue number 11 certainly if you found he was lying on the other 10 things you
would have no reason to trust him on number 11 so i think when we look at some
of the what you might call test points in the scripture
i think it's reasonable for us to look at that and say okay you know
these are at least should give us pause and say hey
why for example i isn't it interesting and i'll just start to go down this list
really quickly with you so you can kind of see why i think there's reason to
believe if it's accurate about these and maybe accurate about this
you'll see that there is some stuff hidden in the scripture that at least
describes scientific issues accurately remember the bible is not a science
book that is not written so that you can determine what
is true about the world scientifically it was written to people who wouldn't have
known if you did describe something accurately from a scientific perspective
the first readers of this scripture wouldn't even recognize it as being
scientifically accurate that's not the purpose of the book
but isn't it interesting that things like the hydrological cycle
you know that idea of you know how things evaporate water evaporates and then it
condenses then you get rain and then you get run off
all of this i don't know how many ancients
and some of the most ancient books in scripture
describe it this way like Job chapter 36 starting in verse 27 he draws up the
the drops of water which distil as rain
back down to the streams that clouds pour down their moisture and abundant
showers fall on mankind the idea and ecclesiastes one seven that all
streams flow into the sea yet the sea is never full
because there's a cycle to the place the streams come from there they return
against this idea of a of a water cycle the hydrological cycle
is in scripture amus nine verse six god calls for the waters of the sea
and pours them out on the surface of the earth
he calls but so this idea that the sea the water in the sea
ends up evaporating into the air into the uh uh
atmosphere condensing and then raining back and running off back into the sea
and i i think many ancients would never have thought
that that water originally came from the ocean
and a lot of ancient mythologies call it out as coming from the gods
like it has a divine source not that it's cycling
but the idea of the cycle is in scripture
odd the idea that we have ocean currents called in those
scriptures as the paths of the sea you'll see it in psalm eight eight
the fish of the sea and all that swim the paths of the seas
as a matter of fact there was a 19th century um
explorer named Matthew Mori and Matthew Mori he was so inspired by psalm eight
and by ecclesiastes one uh which uh
you just mentioned verse seven but also in verse six
that he decided he was going to search for these paths he didn't
know them experientially he knew that they were there because he had
read about them in scripture and then he went out and ended up mapping the
major ocean surface currents at least and i'll
the Windsor all in in in in other words he used these
scriptures to motivate him and he ended up improving navigation quite a bit by
this so again you you see again that that the idea of stable ocean
currents i mean who would who would know of such things
before written largely too before there's time to
actually explore the ocean sufficiently with the kinds of equipment
and the kinds of ships you would need to experience them
i don't think these are even obvious if you could do that not from casual
observation yet here they are in scripture you'll see that there's
that the the idea of wind circuits you know um
atmospheric circulation that's similar right to the kind of ocean
circulation you'll see that ecclesiastes one
verse six the wind blows to the south and turns to the north
round and round it goes ever returning on its course you will see lots of
ancient mythology that describes the wind is actually coming from a god
who blows it not that it's on a circuit in this way
that not that there's circulating atmosphere but here it is in scripture
and of course something really obvious like the beginning of the universe
this idea this big bang cosmology that everything in the universe comes into
existence from nothing all space time and matter does not exist according to
the sciences until the universe we are in begins to
exist and was it say it says in Genesis 1 and 1 that there is something
outside of space time and matter that starts
all of it in the beginning god that idea of in the beginning god
at first Corinthians two seven gods wisdom was there
before time began this idea that something is outside of space time and
matter that is the beginner of all space time and matter
in in other words it how and is an ancient going to presuppose a universe that
has a beginning that's consistent with with big bang cosmology
but and and how many of these eternal universe models have been around
forever right but the not the scriptures scriptures have been pretty clear
the universe has a beginning you'll even see for example some of these
is not even if you said for example
even if you said hey I think that you might be able to experience ocean currents
and then write about them in scripture so it's not a big deal you would find
that in scripture well it is interesting that you see the
the kind of deep valley put them give it to you
in 2nd Samuel 22 16 in Psalm 18 15 you'll see that the writers speak about
springs of the deep and moving fountains of the deep
in Job 38 16 have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the
recesses of the deep just the idea that people would
how would they even know that there are recesses of the deep
well how would they have any assumption to make about the kind of trenches
that exist in the deep ocean trenches that we know now only by way of discovery
these that these these trenches and ridges that that are
basically these mountain ranges under the water these massive valleys
these these vents that we discovered you know one we discovered in 1977
these springs of the deep the super heated water that's coming out of the ocean
floor so these ancient writers now look they if you argue that they would
know something about ocean currents how would they know anything about this
these underwater features without submarines without knowing how to get down
there to see what's down there it's a good guess I guess
and then of course the big one I used in my talk and I've often used I still
think is fascinating is the astronomy and Job where
Pleiades and Orion and Arcturus are described and here here's why I think
they're interesting you will see that Job 38 31 and 32
chapter 38 verses 31 and 32 can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or
Lucino Ryan's belt can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
now what's interesting about that is that these these constellations
from a perspective of humans do seem to do what Job is being
challenged by God or God is challenging him saying can you do this
can you bind the chains of Pleiades the case the Pleiades the Pleiades is a cluster
of stars and and they are gravitationally bound
and they are moving together and they will stay that way for some time
so the idea that they are bound in this way well who could be God is saying can
you bind these Orion these stars are not bound in this way
and they have they they are moving these they over long time scales they will
eventually they look like they're in a line right now
on Orion's belt from our perspective but they're not traveling in the same
direction so that they will stay in that belt they're eventually going to
travel in all kinds of different directions and they will no longer be
a belt they will be loose basically so when he says can you loosen
Ryan's belt that is coming that will happen in a way that's different than
the Pleiades and I'm throwing an Arcturus here because if you go to Job 99
that says who made the Baron Orion and Pleiades and the chambers of the South
so if you look at that in an addition of Arcturus
which is this high velocity giant that has got really unusual
movement motion and this movement is really unusual especially when you compare
it to all the neighboring stars so when it says can you guide Arcturus with his
sons in Job 3832 it's really talking about how this this path is not
now how would Job know that that is the action movement of Arcturus
in the sky because you're not going to have enough time to see it in your
lifetime yet this is this is what is doing it's this high velocity giant
that has this unusual movement so it turns out that all three of these
constellations seem to be accurate even though this is not the
intention of the writer look and the most mainstream
scholarship here for Christians who are Bible scholars and Jews that are
Bible scholars will they'll tell you this is poetic this is not meant to be
technical astronomy this was not given to and that's the whole point
none of scripture was given written to prove to you that God knows science
yet it ought to though if it's true if the Bible is true it ought to describe
things the way they really are by the way it's not just these large events
in scientific truths about the earth and it's not just these large events like
the flood it's it's human anthrop biblical anthropology this is why I wrote
the truth and true crime it turns out it's not just these science facts that it
happens to get right it's not just that it's accurately describing
historical events it's that it accurately describes us so in three
different ways the Bible consistently seems to be reliable
in the sense that it describes humans the way we really are
and that's what truth and true crime is it's 15 attributes of human
of flourishing that are accurate descriptions in scripture that match
the the claims of sociologists so look it's poetry here
a lot of the things by the way that I mentioned here that are describing
scientific truths are really written to be poetic or written for some of
the reason but if anything the casual way that the writer of scripture
refers to these scientific truths long before we could ever
like know by measurement that they are true is one more hint that the author
happens to know what he's talking about so let me just summarize all of it
here's what it comes down to I think there are lots of ancient texts here that
describe some of global event if not a global event it's going to be a
catastrophic regional event but we can argue about that later
and this idea that there's this kind of convergence of memory about what
and that it begins in one region and as soon as these people groups are
separated the what descriptions remain the same even though the why
descriptions begin to diverge that to me is still consistent with a true
historical event that is just being interpreted differently based
on these ever separating groups of people but the core
what's are all the same that to me is hugely important and so
although you have Mesopotamian myths separated from the people who are
writing the accounts of Genesis you get a completely different pantheon a
completely different purpose you all the wise change now you've got
gods who are needy and frightened and inconsistent they
they do things immoral they do immoral behaviors and they just will kill
people for the sake of the fact they want some peace and quiet and then you
have the the core story in which one holy god
judges people for their moral violence for their moral corruption and that
post flood there's a covenant in which human dignity is once again affirmed
and a stable cosmic order is promised the rainbow is the mark of that promise
i think you see that there is at least some evidence here on on earth that would
support either one of these two versions of the flood story
and i also think that you know if if it's a global flood then the question is
could we get enough diversity in animals who are just changing within their
kinds based on regions the same way that people look a lot different all over
the globe but we are still humans could that happen over time if it's just a
regional flood then that question is just doesn't even need to be addressed
but the whole point i'm trying to make here is that either way i think that the
argument would be can we get the kind of diversity we see together in animal
groups today from whatever group was preserved through the flood
and i don't really think that that's necessarily a hard for us to even imagine
given how much time has passed and and how the every genome and every animal
created is created in such a way that we can adjust and
accommodate a different context different geological context and that's why we
have the diversity of people we see and while we have the diversity of
kinds we see and types within the kinds we see across the globe
and finally we do have many examples of just even though they're not the
intention of the writer they are describing things that are true about the
scientific nature the physical structure and nature of the world around us
and that we are living in a universe that has a beginning and that can be
explained in a scientific way even though this book is not meant to be
written to explain the sciences so look when i step back and i look at this
and i think uh to be there's another way to look at this also which i
haven't even talked about which is that Jesus believed in the flood
Jesus believed in Jonah Jesus believed in a lot of the stories in the old
testament that a lot of people reject and i made a whole case for why i
believe that the resurrection occurred why i believe the new testament is
true in cold case Christianity and if Jesus is who he
said he was and truly rose from the grave he speaks authoritatively about
things in a way that no other human could speak he's not just the smartest
man in whoever lived he's the god man
the creator of all things and because he affirms it we should just say okay
well that's his testimony matters but i still even if it didn't have his
testimony i still see a world full of what seems to be
collective memories of a flood rocks that are show the the possibility of
flood and a bible that keeps landing
accurately on a bunch of issues it describes related to nature
now atrahesis and gilgamesh if you ask me they look like these cultural
stories that we see all around that region that that are applying mythology
to answer the wise even though they accurately answer the what's
meanwhile Genesis point paints a story that's a completely different kind of
god a completely different reason for the judgment
a completely different promise about the moral about the stability
and consistency we should expect post flood
a god who who actually is holy and this interpretation of the event the
judgment the mercy offered afterwards the covenant offered afterwards
to me that makes far better sense than the other stories anyway
and it sounds like the each story from which the other stories were twisted
all right i hope that helps you as you think about the the flood story going
forward i appreciate all of you who've written to me since the first
old video posted several years ago and have wanted me to do a podcast on this
you finally got at least a little bit more from me on this
i hope that helps you and i'll see you right back here next week at the
cold case Christianity podcast thanks for listening to the cold case
Christianity podcast with cold case detective and Christian apologist J. Warner
Wallace to explore more resources books and free training materials
visit coldcasecrishiannabee.com and keep learning to make a case for the truth
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