Origins 2(2):77-95 (1975).
Was the flood a local or a world-wide event? What does an analytical study of the Genesis account of the flood reveal?
PLEASE NOTE: Unfortunately, we are unable to reproduce all of the special accent marks that were present in our printed version of the Hebrew transliteration. Our apologies for any inconvenience this might cause.
The Biblical flood narrative represents the story of the greatest incision in world history. The events described in Genesis 6:5-9:17 are reported in the same matter-of-fact language as the remainder of the book of Genesis (1) and thus claim to be understood in its plain and literal sense. The Genesis flood story is neither legend (2) nor myth (3) and neither parable, allegory nor symbol (4). It is written in the straightforward genre of historical narrative in prose style (5). For the purpose of the following discussion the entire flood narrative of Genesis 6:5-9:17 is considered as a literary unity (6) of a single account of the flood (7).
I. THE ISSUE
There are two conflicting schools of interpretation regarding the
extent of the Genesis flood. Traditionally the Biblical flood narrative has been
understood to refer to a universal catastrophe of world-wide dimensions (8). The rise of
uniformitarian evolutionism has been a primary catalyst in challenging the traditional
position. On the basis of considerations from the natural sciences, commentators and
interpreters began to seek for a limited flood theory or a relative view of the Genesis
flood. H. E. Ryle in his commentary on Genesis written in 1914 states forthrightly,
"Geology has shown that no such universal Deluge has ever occurred" (9).
Significant in this assessment is the acknowledgment that on the one hand the Biblical
picture portrays a "universal Deluge" which is not denied and on the other hand
"geological science has demonstrated that a Flood has never simultaneously covered
the whole surface of the globe . . ." (10). Ryle resolves this
conflict by suggesting that the Genesis flood should be understood as a
"symbol," (11) i.e. as a non-historical event which teaches a great theological
truth without being rooted in an actual universal event.
From our own time comes the approach of the liberal Catholic scholar C.
Schedl who has just published a multivolume History of the Old Testament (1973).
His discussion of the extent of the flood is primarily concerned with "the
geographical extent of the flood" which in the view of the writer of Genesis must be
understood in terms of "the geographical universality of the flood" (12). Schedl
quickly points out that "particularly with the paleontological investigation of the
earth's crust, a growing tide of reflection has been mounting against the geographical
universality of the flood" (13). On the basis of the evidences from the natural
sciences, Schedl argues that the Biblical narrator formulated "the flood narrative,
just as the creation narrative, [from] the Ancient Near Eastern picture of the
world . . ." (14). What he means to say is that since the
"picture of the world" was limited in its geographical scope, the geographical
universality of the flood is limited to that same picture of the world. Since Schedl
argues for the limited geographical picture of the world for the flood on the basis of
that of creation, a logical conclusion would be that there was also a geographically
limited creation described in the creation account (15). This is, however, what neither
Schedl nor other critical scholars think is conceivable. The approach outlined in this
paragraph considers the Genesis flood story limited in geographical scope on the basis of
the historically conditioned limitation of the world view of ancient Near Eastern man.
Biblical writers are considered to reflect the limitations of their pagan predecessors and
contemporaries.
The majority of scholars of the liberal critical school maintain
however that Genesis indeed described a flood of world-wide dimensions, one that is to be
understood in terms of global geographical extent (16). This should, of course, not be
understood to imply that they actually accept as historical fact the Genesis description.
Although liberal critical scholars in general recognize that the Genesis picture is that
of a universal flood of global scope, they are also united in their view that this picture
can no longer be understood in a literal sense. The non-literal (mythic, legendary,
parabolical, symbolic, theological) understanding is based almost exclusively upon
geological and anthropological consideration of modern times. The recent article in the
well-known Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible states, "The belief in a
deluge covering the whole earth and destroying all men and animals except those preserved
in an ark has largely been given up" (17). Scholars of the liberal critical school
readily point out that the narrator of the universal flood picture indeed believed what he
wrote.
The problem accordingly is not one primarily of the Biblical text but
one of critical and liberal scholarship. Langdon B. Gilkey, himself belonging to the
liberal school of scholars, writes incisively of modern scholarship that it is "half
liberal and modern on the one hand, and half Biblical and orthodox on the other, i.e. its
world view or cosmology is modern while its theological language is Biblical and
orthodox" (18). He states "What has happened is clear: because of our modern
cosmology, we have stripped what we regard as 'the Biblical point of view' of all its
wonders and voices . . . we have rejected as invalid all the innumerable cases
of God's acting and speaking" (19). This is a most revealing self-analysis. He also
uncovers why the liberal critical school arrives at its understanding of the Biblical
text. "First there is the job of stating what the Biblical writers meant to say, a
statement couched in the Bible's own terms, cosmological, historical, and
theological" (20). Often critical scholars seek to understand Bible writers on their
own terms; if the Biblical picture is in conflict with the modern understanding of the
world and man, then the Biblical view is reinterpreted in such a way so as to remove its
conflict with that of the modern conception.
There is a great number of scholars who do not follow the hermeneutical
categories of critical Biblical scholarship. A common feature of those who are
conservative or evangelical in their theological outlook is their high esteem of Biblical
authority and inspiration. This does not allow them to treat lightly the point of view of
the Biblical writer because he reveals divine truth and not just ancient religious points
of view. Biblical statements are authoritative and binding for faith. On the basis of this
common starting-point two avenues are open when there is a conflict between a modern
understanding of natural phenomena and a Biblical truth. Let us consider the two avenues
of conservative/evangelical scholars.
One school of thought more or less accepts the uniformitarian
interpretation of geological and other natural phenomena (21) and the modern evolutionary
concept of anthropology (22) seeking a harmonization by interpreting the flood narrative
in Genesis in non-universal terms (23). In other words this school of thought more or less
shares with liberal critical scholarship the modern, evolutionary interpretation of
natural phenomena. This pre-understanding leads them to read the Biblical writer in such a
way that any conflict with their preconceived ideas is avoided. From the hermeneutical
perspective it is evident that the modern pre-understanding serves as a key for the
interpretation of Biblical data. This approach operates obviously with an external key
which is designed to unlock Scripture. The question of what the Biblical writer actually
meant to say recedes into the background if it is not indeed completely disregarded in
order to establish harmony between the modern pre-understanding and the Biblical data.
This approach implies that contextual and internal considerations are submerged or even
sacrificed (24). In the final analysis this approach does not allow that the inspired
revelation of Scripture has any formative function in the interpretation of the book of
nature.
The other school of thought among conservative/evangelical scholars
maintains that an external principle and approach to Biblical interpretation built on
modern pre-understanding robs the Biblical data of being interpreted objectively. It seeks
to be as sensitive as possible to both the issues for faith in the area of nature and its
interpretation and the area of Biblical revelation and its own interpretation. It attempts
to control external influences on Biblical interpretation and seeks to operate in terms of
the Biblical context. The modern pre-understanding is thus opened to questions concerning
its premises and a prioris. A new interpretation of natural data is sought on the basis of
Biblical creationism and catastrophism which is in conflict with scientific
uniformitarianism (25).
In one aspect this approach is akin to that of the critical school's
attempt to grasp what the Bible writer meant to say. This is done by paying most careful
attention to the terms, phrases, idioms, expressions, etc., which the writers employed and
to understand these within their own linguistic and contextual connections. This means to
refuse to let external notions influence what a Bible writer actually meant to say. He is
allowed to speak for himself which means that although he is a man of his own time,
culture, and language, he nevertheless was able to express correctly and authoritatively
the divinely revealed truth committed to him. No Bible writer must be interpreted by means
of an ancient or modern world view. He must be allowed to speak for himself. The unique
nature of the inspired Biblical testimony makes it imperative that only other inspired
writings can have a determinative bearing on Biblical truth.
The discussion of these basic issues has set the stage for our inquiry
with regard to the Biblical evidence for the question of the extent of the flood in the
witness of the Bible. This investigation is carried out in order to determine on the basis
of the witness of the Bible whether or not the flood is depicted as a world-wide
catastrophe or whether it is of limited geographical extent.
II. THE BIBLICAL WITNESS
A. The Matter of Terminology
1. The Term "Earth." In the announcement
of the flood it is stated "God saw the earth" (Genesis 6:12) and the "earth
was corrupt in God's sight" (6:11), the "earth was filled with violence"
(6:11, 13). God decreed to "destroy them [all flesh] with the earth" (6:13) by
bringing a flood of waters "upon the earth" (6:17). The aim of the flood is that
"everything that is on earth shall die" (6:17). The term "earth"
occurs by itself or in the phrases "upon the face of all the earth" (7:3; 8:9) a
total of 46 times (26) in Genesis 6:5-9:17. The Hebrew term employed in all of these
instances is Éeres.The
Septuagint translates this term consistently with the Greek equivalent ge, "earth" (27). The English
authorized versions (English Revised Version, American Revised Version, Revised Standard
Version, New Jewish Version, Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible, New American Bible)
translated the Hebrew term consistently with "earth" with the exception of the
New English Bible which renders Éeres
in two instances with "world" (6:11, 12). It is recognized that the term
"earth" gives the flood narrative a universal outlook.
Supporters of the local flood theory have pointed out that the Hebrew
term Éeres
can mean "land" so that we should read "land" and "all the
land" respectively instead of "earth" (28). It is entirely correct to
recognize that the term Éeres
does not always or even in the majority of its 2504 usages (29) in the Old Testament mean
"earth" in a global or world-wide sense. Space does not permit a detailed
investigation of the ranges of meaning of Éeres,
the noun which ranks as number four in frequency of usage in the Old Testament.
The formula "heaven and earth" which is employed 41 times in
the Old Testament (30) and the sequence "earth and heaven" (6 times [31]) is the
standard Hebrew expression for the totality of the world made up of the globe
("earth") and the surrounding atmospheric heavens ("heaven"). It is
the Hebrew surrogate for the term "world" (Greek kosmos) for which the
Hebrew had no single expression.
It is by no means clear why the translation "land" with its geographical
and political limitations should be the meaning in the flood narrative. Why could it not
be the physical usage of Éeres
in the sense of "ground" upon which man stands (Genesis 24:52; Exodus 8:12, 13;
Amos 3:5; 9:9; Ezekiel 28:17; Psalm 147:6; etc.) or the "dry land" in contrast
to the water (Genesis 1:10)? Is it because the former is too narrow for a local flood
theory and the latter too broad? Is the choice made on the basis of what fits best a given
preconceived hypothesis? We agree whole-heartedly with F. A. Filby, who strongly supports
a local flood theory, in his emphasis "that the meaning [of Éeres] must be determined by the
context" (32). Indeed we firmly support the notion that in understanding correctly
the terminology of the Genesis flood narrative one must pay most careful attention to the
context and situation of the narrative within the framework of Genesis and the whole
Bible. Of equal importance are grammatical and syntactical relationships. If the context
is considered in determining the meaning of the terminology in the Genesis flood
narrative, then it does not matter whether Éeres
"has more often a limited meaning than a universal one" (33). The quantitative
argument has no force because each usage is determined by its own context. Let us proceed
on the basis of contextual considerations which permits the text to speak for itself and
guards against uncontrolled and arbitrary interpretations.
Proof-texts cited in support of the local flood theory such as
"the land of Shinar" (Genesis 10:10) (34), "the whole land of Havilah"
(Genesis 2:11), "the whole land of Cush" (Genesis 2:13), "the land of
Nod" (Genesis 4:16), "the land of Canaan" (Genesis 11:31), Egypt (Genesis
13:10), Philistia (Genesis 21:34), Moriah (Genesis 22:2) (35), have in each case the term Éeres employed in a limited geographical
or political sense. That these texts have no bearing whatever on the meaning of the term Éeres in the Genesis flood narrative is
evident from the following consideration: In each of these examples (and they could be
multiplied many times over) the term Éeres
is followed by a genitive which contextually limits Éeres to a geographical area or political
territory. None of the 46 usages of Éeres
in the Genesis flood narrative is ever followed by a genitive and thus is not parallel or
analogous to the usage of Éeres
in the texts cited by supporters of the local flood theory. In other words, the context of
each of the above examples cited in support of the local flood theory indicates without
doubt that Éeres
has a limited meaning. This kind of contextual indication must always be present for a
limited geographical meaning of Éeres
(36). Since it is absent from the usages in the flood story the universal meaning of Éeres remains firmly supported.
2. The Phrase "the Face of all the Earth."
In two instances the flood story adds the adjective "all" (kol) to the noun "earth" (Éeres). Noah is commanded to take seven
pairs of all clean animals and birds and a pair of unclean animals into the ark "to
keep their kind alive upon the face of all the earth" (Genesis 7:3; cf. 8:9). The
idea of "all the earth" (kol-haÉares)
is undoubtedly universalistic. It is argued that "all the earth" need not be
understood in a strictly literal sense because there are passages in which "a
universal meaning . . . is modified by the context" (37). Among the texts
cited in favor of a limited interpretation of "all the earth" are Exodus 10:5,
15; Numbers 22:5, 11; 1 Kings 4:34; 10:24; 2 Chronicles 36:23 and Genesis 41:57:
"Moreover, all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was
severe over all the earth" (Revised Standard Version). Do these texts, which employ
according to their context the phrase "all the earth" (kol-haÉares) in the sense of "the whole
land," imply that this limited idea must be the meaning of this phrase in the flood
story or other parts of Scripture? If "all the earth" should always mean
"the whole land," then the Lord's claim that "all the earth is mine"
(Exodus 19:5) would mean not more than merely a local deity's claim of possession of only
"the whole land" as pagan gods claimed. Obviously the context of Exodus 19:5
demands the universal meaning of "all the earth" which is God's. When the Lord
says "there is none like me in all the earth" (Exodus 9:16), He means the entire
globe and not a local country (38). Again we must affirm that the context must be allowed
to determine the meaning of "all the earth" each time it appears. It is unsound
hermeneutically to read indiscriminately from one context to another. Furthermore, the
actual phrase in Genesis 7:3 and 8:9 is "the face of all the earth." This is the
phrase that needs further attention.
What is the contextual meaning of "all the earth" in the
flood story? At the opening of the Genesis flood narrative the impending destruction is
linked explicitly to the sinfulness of man whom the Lord had "made" (Genesis
6:5) and "created" (v. 6). "The connection between Creation and the Flood
is a very real one . . ." (39). God made man sinless but now he is so
sinful that he must be destroyed. Man was created to have dominion over all creatures and
"over all the earth" (kol-haÉares,
Genesis 1:26) which is the entire globe and, not just the "dry land" (Genesis
1:10), because his dominion includes the creatures on land and "the fish of the
sea" (Genesis 1:26). Man and beast have become so corrupt that the appointed survivor
Noah is instructed to take a limited number of land creatures and birds on board the ark
"to keep their kind alive upon the face of all the earth" (Genesis 7:3). This
explicit contextual link between creation and flood is a clear indication that "all
the earth" in Genesis 7:3 and 8:9 has more than a local and limited meaning (40).
Inasmuch as the phrase in Genesis 7:3 and 8:9 is "the face of all
the earth" it appears that there is a further qualification through the addition of
the expression "the face of" (penê). It is striking that
the identical Hebrew phrase rendered in English as "the face of all the earth"
is used for the first time in the creation narrative. In Genesis 1:29 God informs man,
"Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the
earth . . . ." Here "the face of all the earth," with
"the face of" clearly being a metaphorical expression (41), refers to the
"surface" (42) of the "dry land" (Genesis 7:22). After the two
instances in the flood narrative, the same phrase appears for the last time in Genesis in
the story of the Tower of Babel (43) where man is dispersed by God "upon the face of
all the earth" (Genesis 11:4, 8, 9) which is a scattering over the whole world (44).
The evident universal usage of this phrase in the book of Genesis supports the universal
view of this phrase in the Genesis flood story. "Earth" or "the face of all
the earth" in the flood story is in each instance universal in meaning.
It may be parenthetically inserted that the non-universal phrase
concerning the famine which was spread "over all the face of the earth" (Genesis
41:56) has a subtle difference in word order and is thus not identical in meaning to the
phrase used in Genesis 1:29; 7:3; 8:9; 11:4, 8 , 9 as linguistic usage and context
indicate. On the basis of context and style Genesis 41:56 does not do away with the
universal meaning (45) of the phrase "the face of all the earth" in the flood
narrative (Genesis 7:3; 8:9) (46).
The question has been raised why the Genesis flood story does not
employ the Hebrew term tebel (47) which means "dry land"
(48) or "world" (49) in the sense of "continents" (50). This term
appears 39 times in the Old Testament (51) but never in Genesis or the other books of
Moses. The reason why this term is not employed lies in the fact that tebel
appears only in poetic texts whereas the flood narrative is prose. Therefore the lack of
this universalistic term of the flood narrative does in no sense imply a
non-universalistic meaning for the term "earth." This argument from silence
which does not even consider the contextual and poetic usage of a term is best to be
dispensed with.
3. The Phrase "Face of the Ground." The
phrase "face of the ground" (penê haÉadamah)
appears five times in the Genesis flood story in a variety of connections. God "will
blot out man whom I have created from the face of the ground" (Genesis 7:4). After
"everything on the dry land (52) in whose nostrils was the breath of life died"
(Genesis 7:22), it is stated that "he blotted out every living thing that was upon
the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the air; they
were blotted out from the earth" (v. 23). It should be observed that in verse 23 the
phrase "face of the ground" is parallel in thought to "the earth" in
the same passage. Another parallelism is found between "the waters had subsided from
the face of the ground" (Genesis 8:8) and "the waters were still on the face of
all the earth" (v. 9). The third parallelism appears between the phrase "the
waters were dried from off the earth" (v. 13b) and the statement "the face of
the ground was dry" (v. 13c). These usages and their parallelism indicate that
"face of the ground" is an expression which means the surface of the dry land in
its most universal sense.
The observation that the extent of "ground" (Éadamah)
would be determined by the term "earth" (Éeres), which is made by some supporters
of the local flood theory (53), is entirely correct. The explicit parallelism ("face
of the ground" = "earth" 7:23; 8:8f.; 8:13) demands such an interpretation.
We have already seen that "earth" and "face of all the earth" points
into a single direction, namely the entire surface of the global mass of land.
It is again striking that the expression "face of the ground"
is employed for the first time in the creation narrative which has an undeniable universal
emphasis. According to Genesis 2:6 "a mist (54) went up from the earth and watered
the whole face of the ground." The "face of the ground" is the
"surface" (55) (so also New American Bible, New English Bible, Anchor Bible) of
the dry land or ground (56). The Hebrew term translated "ground" (Éadamah)
appears in the Old Testament 225 times (57) with the basic meaning of "ground,
soil" (58). The most universal usage of Éadamah
is "earth" (59). It can also mean the "ground" upon which man stands
(60) which can separate (61) and which carries the creeping things (Genesis 1:25; 2:6) and
as the term "earth" and "face of all the earth" (Genesis 7:23; 8:8-9,
13). There is no contextual indication whatever for a limited usage (64). We must
"read the [flood] account whole-heartedly in its own terms" (65).
4. The Phrase "All Flesh." The 13 usages of
the expression "all flesh" in the flood story (66) with the express notation
that God will "make an end of all flesh" (6:13), "destroy all flesh"
(6:17), and the statement of the subsequent fact that "all flesh died" (7:21f.)
gives the unmistakable impression of universal destruction. B. Ramm has suggested that
"all does not mean every last one in all of its usages" (67).
It is entirely correct that "all" (kol)
which is employed in the Hebrew Old Testament 5404 times (68) does not always express
totality. But it should be remembered that its basic meaning is "totality" (69)
and that it is always expressive of totality with rare exceptions where the individual
context provides a clear indication. If this were not so, then grand confusion would
result because the word "all" would then never mean "all" but
something less than "all," something less than totality.
With regard to the formula "all flesh" a syntactical
consideration does not even leave it an "open question" (70) whether it is
"all" in a restrictive sense or in the sense of totality. The formula "all
flesh" in the Hebrew appears as a genitival construction kol-basar.
If kol ("all") appears in construction before an indeterminate (i.e.
without article or possessive suffix) noun (in our case "flesh"), then the
meaning is totality (71), i.e. "all flesh" in the sense of "all
men or all living creatures" (72). In one of the 13 usages in the flood
narrative the kol appears before a determinate noun, i.e. kol-habasar "all the flesh" . (7:15) (73).
In such a case "kol . . . expresses unity" (74) and
"entirety" (75). This same rule of Hebrew syntax applies to the determinate
genitival construction "all the earth" (kol-haÉares) in Genesis 7:3 and 8:9 which means
"the whole earth" (76) in its entirety. Inasmuch as "all (the) flesh"
in the Genesis flood story includes both man and animals (77) as has been shown
in detail above, there can be no doubt about the fact that the destruction of "all
(the) flesh" refers to the destruction of men and animals on land and in the air in
their totality and entirety. This fact is underlined by the explicit statement that
"only Noah was left, and those [members of his family and land animals and birds]
that were with him in the ark" (7:23). "These alone were left after the
universal destruction," states U. Cassuto (78) quite appropriately.
5. The Phrase "Every Living Thing." Another
expression of totality is "every living thing" (kol-hahay) which appears in Genesis 6:19 where
"every living thing of all flesh" is to be brought into the ark by pairs (79).
This expression encompasses birds, animals, and creeping things (v. 20). Here again kol
("all") is followed by a determinate noun which indicates that kol
"has the meaning of the entirety, i.e. all, the whole" (80).
The translation "every living thing" in the text of Genesis
7:23, "He blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the ground, man
and animals and creeping things and birds of the air," is expressive of the same
threefold division of creatures as in 6:9 but also includes man. The Hebrew phrase,
however, is not identical to the one in 6:19 but to the one in 7:4: "and I will blot
out every living thing that I have made from the face of the ground." In 7:4, 23 the
phrase is kol-hayecûm. The term yeqûm is used
aside from the two usages here only once more in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 11:6). Its
meaning is "existence," (81) "living being" (82) or "what is
living" (83). Since kol ("all") is again determinate the idea
expressed is that God blotted out "all existence" in their entirety of what was
living of living beings from the face of the whole earth with the flood waters. There is
hardly any stronger way in the Hebrew to emphasize total destruction of "all
existence" of human and animal life on earth than the way it has been expressed. The
writer of the Genesis flood story employed terminology, formulae, and syntactical
structures of the type that could not be more emphatic and explicit in expressing his
concept of a universal, world-wide flood.
6. The Phrase "Under the Whole Heaven." The
phrase "under the whole heaven" (tahat kol-haššamayim)
in Genesis 7:19, "and the waters prevailed so mightily upon the earth that all the
high mountains under the whole heaven were covered," "may not be so easily
disposed of" (84), says G. L. Archer, a supporter of the local flood theory. The
famous commentator F. Delitzsch has stated, "But if the water covered 'all the high
hills under the whole heaven,' this clearly indicates the universality of the flood"
(85). The critical scholar J. Skinner comments that "7:19, 20 not only asserts its
[the flood's] universality, but so to speak proves it, by giving the exact height of the
waters above the highest mountains" (86).
Most supporters of the local flood theory do not discuss the phrase
"under the whole heaven." But those who attempt to come to grips with this
serious difficulty for their hypothesis point out that "heaven" (šamayim)
"can mean 'sky', or the visible part of heaven within the horizon (e.g. 1 Kings
xviii.45)" (87). 1 Kings 18:45 reads, "And in a little while the heavens grew
black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain." The context here clearly
indicates that "heavens" means sky. But the context of Genesis 7:19 is entirely
different! In addition the syntactical usage of "heaven" in both passages is
entirely different. Dare we neglect the specific usage of a term? Certainly not. While in
1 Kings 18:45 (šamayim ("heavens") appears by
itself, in Genesis 7:19 kol ("all") is in construct state to the
determinate (i.e. with article) noun šamayim. It has been shown several times before
that this syntactical relationship expresses totality and entirety. This is to say that
the waters submerged all the high mountains of the totality and in the entirety under the
atmospheric heavens. The way it is written in the Hebrew excludes any local or limited
concept of "heavens." The phrase "under the whole heaven" indeed
clearly asserts the universality of the flood.
It has been objected that if we understand the phrase that "all
the high mountains" were covered with the flood waters at elevations above that of
Mt. Everest that the "rarified atmosphere" would "render all but a few
creatures insensible in a very few moments for lack of oxygen" (89). To this it has
been responded that "all such concerns are misplaced, for it is an elementary fact
that atmospheric pressure depends on elevation relative to sea level" (90). On the
other hand, there is no Biblical evidence for Mt. Everest or other high mountains to have
existed at the time of the flood and consequently it is not necessary to "assert that
the waters mounted to a depth of six miles" (91).
Let us briefly summarize. The Genesis flood narrative provides ample
evidence of being an account which is to be understood as a historical narrative in prose
style. It expects to be taken literally. There is a consistent and overwhelming amount of
terminology and formulae such as the frequent usages of "earth" and "all
the earth," "the face of the ground," "the dry land," "all
flesh," "under the whole heaven," which on the basis of context and syntax
has uniformly indicated that the flood story wants to be understood in a universal sense:
the waters destroyed all human and animal plus bird life on the entire land mass of the
globe. To read it otherwise means to force a meaning on the carefully written and specific
syntactical constructions of the original language which the text itself rejects. This
universal emphasis with its picture of a world-wide flood finds additional supports from
other considerations.
B. The Flood and the History of Beginnings
1. Genealogies. The universality of the flood is to
be inferred also from the parallelism of antediluvian and postdiluvian genealogical lines.
The whole antediluvian world is populated from the offspring of Adam, namely Cain (Genesis
4:17-24) and Seth (4:25-26) in the great genealogical list of Genesis 5:1-31. As Adam is
in the Bible's view the father of pre-flood man, so Noah is the father of post-flood man.
As from Adam's sons the whole world was populated, so from Noah's sons the entire earth is
once more populated. This is the clear claim of the postdiluvian genealogical list called
the Table of Nations of Genesis 10:1-32. From Noah's sons arose the nations of the world:
". . . and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the
flood" (Genesis 10:32). The experience of the Tower of Babel spreads them across the
entire globe (Genesis 11:1-9).
2. Blessings. We have noted frequent allusions in
terminology and thought to the creation story. Another important aspect indicating the
universality of the flood from which Noah and his family are the only human survivors
(Genesis 7:23) concerns the blessing. After man had been created as male and female, as
the pinnacle of creation, God bestows His divine blessing upon him by saying, "Be
fruitful and multiply and fill the earth . . ." (Genesis 1:28). On the
basis of this charge the antediluvian world is populated with human beings (92). These
very words are spoken also to the survivors of the destructive flood: "And God
blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the
earth'" (Genesis 9:1). As prediluvian man "had" his beginning with Adam, so
postdiluvian man has his beginning with Noah. Man after creation and after the flood
receives the same divine blessing. With both there is a new beginning. The corollary of
the fact that with first man the prediluvian world is populated is the fact that with man
surviving the flood the postdiluvian world is populated anew. In this example of blessing
we note again that the focus of the first eleven chapters of Genesis including the flood
story is the entire world in its global dimension and not a limited geographical area.
3. Covenant. In making a covenant with Noah,
"your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the
birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you" (Genesis 9:9-10), God
pledges unconditionally that "never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of
the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth" (v. 11). Not
only is the covenant itself of a universal nature valid in perpetuity for "all
flesh" saved in the ark, but the covenant sign in the form of the rainbow is
universal (v. 12-17). It is a world-wide witness to the world-wide flood and a world-wide
witness that "the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh"
(v. 15). If there had been a limited flood, then there would have had to be a limited
covenant and covenant sign. The universality of both the covenant and the rainbow
witnesses to the universality of the flood.
III. CONCLUSION
Our investigation of the term "earth" and the phrases
"the face of all the earth," "face of the ground," "all
flesh," "every living thing," and "under the whole heaven" has
consistently shown that this is universalistic language pointing into a single direction
of a flood of global scope. Indeed the writer of the Genesis flood story had no means at
his disposal to make this more explicit than he actually did. Context and syntax uniformly
indicated that the writer wished to convey the picture of a world-wide flood which covered
the entire antediluvian land masses which destroyed all human, animal and bird life that
existed on them.
Additional supports for the universal concept of the flood offered
themselves in the parallelism of antediluvian and postdiluvian genealogies, in the
blessings spoken by God over first man on earth and over man surviving the flood, and in
the universal covenant and the world-wide covenant sign in the form of the rainbow.
In conclusion we cannot refrain from referring to the typological
analogy of a world-wide flood of which the apostle Peter spoke. His inspired words build
on the world-wide destruction of the antediluvian world by water. The next universal
destruction of the world will be by fire. "The world that then existed was deluged
with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and the earth that now exist
have been stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of
ungodly men" (2 Peter 3:6-7). God will again interrupt the steady rhythm of the
world; He will again carry out what He has foretold.
FOOTNOTES
All contents copyright
Geoscience Research Institute. All rights reserved.
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