Global Flood or Ancient Myth? What the Evidence Really Shows

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

of Christianity