The Genesis Flood: Global vs. Localized, or instead: Targetedly-Weighted
An issue of debate that typically comes up with the account of the Genesis Flood is whether or not it was a planet-wide destruction or only a localized event, i.e., solely where people actually lived at the time. The following is a brief, currently cursory and non-exhaustive, overview on the various Biblical and Physical Science reasons why it is more likely than not that the Flood in Genesis was crafted/targeted by God to much more destroy the inhabited portions of the earth then vs. the parts which were not so inhabited. And in such a precise, “surgical”, i.e. targeted, flooding event, God would have demonstrated His great power and control over nature in, even cataclysmic conditions and circumstances, with, as it will be seen, the concrete purposes of ecological preservation and fair (effects of) judgement, especially in regards to yet-to-live generations.
Evidence for a Targeted Flood
§ Only Cognitively Affected Creation Needed To Be “Blotted Out” - As stated in the Bible it was primarily, irreparably corrupted man and beasts that needed to be destroyed in this Flood judgement. (Gen 6:5-7, 11-13; cf. 8:21b). Relatively non-intelligent life, which had not form a similar cognitive and/or behavorial reaction to, and memory of, sin and its detrimental effects, did not have to so physically be “blotted out.” Furthermore as, according to the Bible, it had not rained on the earth, nor was the land cultivated, resulting in no pronounced vegetation to have sprouted, beyond probably merely the ‘grass [capable of resulting in] seed yielding herbage [capable of resulting in] fruit-bearing trees; each according its seed’ (as the, commonly observed, somewhat “odd phrasing” of Gen 1:11, 12 - i.e., no conjunction between the three terms in esp. vs. 11 here - cf. (italics in) NKJV may be indicating[1]) (see Gen 2:5, 6, 8, 9; 3:23), there therefore apparently was not much developed vegetation in uninhabited (thus non-cultivated) parts of the world. Following the flood, when rain from heaven became the norm, such vegetation was able to wildly sprout up on its own as seen in the more dense “Rainforests” (e.g. the Amazon). Indeed the Garden of Eden was effectively an Estate that God Himself had prepared (i.e., planted and cultivated) for Adam and Eve (Gen 2:8a, 9a, 15), whereas the rest of creation outside of the Garden was not so developed.[2]
In Gen 6:13b, it is indicated that God was going to also destroy “the earth”. The Hebrew expression here for “earth” - “erets” is interchangeably used to refer to either the world as a whole, or a specific land/country in particular. In fact, it properly denotes whatever area of land is particularly being affected or referred to. Therefore, in this case, it could only need to strictly refer to the parts of the world where man and beast had occupied. That would be because, if indeed the vegetative development of the world before the flood, outside of the Garden of Eden, depended on the manual work of men, then it is more than likely that both man and beast congregated where such work was being done by man, for reason of their physical subsistence, without remote ventures to far away areas being unnecessarily undertaken. But, the Biblical description of the even undeveloped Earth before the Flood damage as compared to the rugged state of still uninhabited parts of the planet today self-reveal, as also substantiated by geological findings/observations, that some major flooding destruction did also occur there. As it says in the SOP on this issue: “[God] would sweep away the beasts of the field, and the vegetation which furnished such an abundant supply of food, and would transform the fair earth into one vast scene of desolation and ruin.” (PP 92)
So though the flood waters did cover the entire Earth, these more inhabited areas did indeed require more and more forceful waters to destroy who and what had been occupying it, and that cartographically perfectly accords with the anthropological/historical understanding of where the “cradle of civilization” had been, i.e., in the Middle East region.
§ Restrained Migration - As mentioned above, typical migratory patterns (cf. this map based on Gen 10) consistently show that, people do not venture further away than they have to, which is mostly determined by adverse physical externals. Therefore it was indeed more than likely the case that the Antedelluvian, like the common-language inhabitants of Babel, remained together in large groups, as they shared many characteristics and views in common. Furthermore, if Noah was to have reached all of the population then with his message (as the repeatedly demonstrated fairness of God in such matters would suggest), they indeed were more than likely all within ready/contiguous reach to his preaching and his ark building site.
§ Controlled Pre-Flood Population - Against the assumption that the entire Earth would need to be samely destroyed because it was then teeming with people, as it is also assumed that because people before the flood live for long periods of time (ca. 900 years), that they therefore proportionally had an extremely high number of children, the several examples in pre-flood, and even post-flood families, as man’s years then gradually decreased, that this was not necessarily the case. Noah himself had only 3 sons. He was possibly even 500 years old before his first son was born (Gen 5:32).[3] Now unless he had e.g., 150 (non-officially reckoned) daughters, then it could be defended that them having many children was easily the case. However the Bible seems clear that these 3 sons were the only offspring that he had. As the Bible clearly shows that God can, and does, ‘open or close a women’s womb’ when, and as, He sees fit, He may have actively engaged in population control with the post-Fall, pre-flood generations, a generation gone way wrong from the earliest of times. If indeed God would not have to “desolate and ruin” parts of the world that were not inhabited then, this active interposition of His may have been done in order to preserve as much of the (productive) earth as possible for later generations, with God evidently having these plans for such a massive flooding destruction since the time of ‘the prophet Enoch’ (Jude 1:14) when he was manifestly Divinely or derivedly, inspired to name his son Methuselah (Gen 5:21), which is a name that means ‘when he dies it [i.e., the Flood] will be sent’. Indeed, as also seen here in that online (Amazing Facts ministry) Bible History Timeline, Methuselah died in the year that the flood came (Gen 7:6).
So the ca. 1800 year pre-flood population was not necessarily an innumerable sprawling throng of people, and may have similarly been only around the 1850 A.D. estimated world population of 1 billion people (reckoning from 1 A.D. see here). Better living conditions would suggest that the population then was significantly higher, however the reported level of rampant and wanton evil, corruption and violence (cf. Gen 6:11-13) could inherently easily offset any such existing/remaining natural advantages.
§ Middle East Desertification - The effectuated weighted “desolation and ruin” of the ‘parts of the Earth much more than others by God’ is indeed readily seen in the quite noticeable and observable fact that of all the various regions of the world, the region where civilization historically began, namely the Middle Eastern regions, are indeed the most “desolate and ruined” parts of the world. Vegetation in these regions is inherently almost non-existent, and much of the landscape is covered in varying layers of sand. Compare to other parts of the world where green vegetation is the predominant norm, the large scale barrenness of Middle Eastern regions (including the Northern regions of Africa) strongly corroborate the destruction done by a targetedly weighted flood on the scale of that is related in Genesis.
Also these “waters from the deep” (Gen 7:11), pointedly in those then greatly inhabited and developed areas, would indeed have cause the sand at the bottom of the oceans to remain behind on the land after the waters receded (e.g., the great sand dunes of the Sahara desert), much like the sand is deposited on beaches (cf. Jer 5:22).
The SOP’s explanation in 3SG 78.1 as to the further ruin of those previously greatly inhabited regions by an incredibly strong wind that God needed to cause to blow upon those inhabited, and now destroyed, regions in order to cause all of the strewn human and animal bodies to be buried.
So this all therefore gives a quite logical, and also inspired, explanation as to why the Middle East is so copiously desertified and covered in sand.
§ Middle East Crude Oil Abundance - As also inspiredly explained in 3SG 79.1, 80.1, another distinct natural phenomenon, unique to the Middle East, is in the (notoriously), relatively, exclusive vast (subterranean) oil field that are found in this geographical region. Crude Oil is naturally formed through the transformation of buried vegetation (biomass), which, with much time would become the product that we have today. However with the account of the forces involved in the flood, it is (a) not surprising that this conversion could take place within a relatively short time since the Creation considering the tremendous amounts of extreme water pressure involved, but also (b) that these oil reserves are found in such abundance in such, surfacely barren regions of the world. Furthermore vegetation does not naturally grow below the earth’s surface, so it indeed would have had to be forcefully buried in an upheaval process.
All of these merging scientific factors all corroborate a belief that this region was indeed much more “weightedly” (=extreme pressures) destroyed by the Genesis flood.
§ Tilt of Earth Axis - In a planet that was deliberately ordered for optimal life by God, to the point of full saturation (Gen 1:28), it is therefore highly unlikely, that the current tilt of the earth’s axis which causes the drastic and extreme changes in seasons (see here), was part of that “good and perfect” creation. That would mean severely cold winters and torrid summers. It is also an observed and documented scientific fact that significant seismic activity can cause the earth axis to also shift, such as the experienced shift in the 9.1 Indian Ocean earthquake (2004) and the recent 8.8 Chile earthquake (2010) which caused shift of ca. 2.5-6 cm (1-2.4 in) and 7.6 cm (3 in) respectively. Indeed the Earth’s current, relatively extreme position of 23.44 degree is also scientific fact that strongly suggests a localized flooding. If this was the case then the massive shifting of the world’s waters all rushing to one part of the globe could indeed have caused it to teeter towards that flooded region, thus causing this significant axial shift (cf. Psa 104:5). The current fragmentation, friction and unstableness of earth’s tectonic plate causing these massive earthquakes today all evidently find their genesis in the geological upheavals resulting from, and accompanying, the flood. (See next section).
The regulation of the earth waters was a major foundational aspect of God’s preparing this planet for habitation by humans (see Gen 1:9, 10; Job 38:4-11; Psa 104:5-9; Pro 8:28, 29). It therefore can be seen how the reversal of this delimitation can bring about physical destruction of this creation. And waters more turbulently rushing, even, initially more rapidly gushingly flooding towards/in one area, would indeed have caused a massive weight shift of this globe. So that by the time that the heights of the highest mountain top(s) on the Earth, (which, as topographically seen today, were not found all over the Earth) were surpassed by 7 m (23 ft) (Gen 7:19, 20), even though that would result in a even height of water at that level throughout the Earth, this axis-tilting/shifting damage had already been cause.
Moreover, with the highest (= +8000m/26,247ft) independent mountain peaks (=14) being all found around, but not in, the Middle East area, i.e., mainly in the Southern Asia area, -in the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges there, these mountain peaks may have actually been acentuated, even entirely caused right during the flood itself (=3SG 77.2b) as the force of waters spilling from the Middle East area, when meeting with pointed natural/geological obstructions in that Southern Asia area, cause these mountain to peak to even greater heights, which then had to also be covered up by the flood waters, and/or, in some cases, suddenly, originally form.
And added to all of this this is the fact that the torrential rains that were prepared for this flood more than likely came from bodies of waters already present on the earth, (as added waters from external sources would hydrologically become non-manageable for this planet after the flood), would also contribute to this tremendous weight shift, particularly, if as discussed below, the “land mass” of the Earth was initially all collected in on area, thus causing these flood waters to flow en mass towards a single region of the globe. Thus here, a weighted-destruction Genesis flood provides the best explanation for the “non-perfect”, significant tilt of the earth’s axis.
§ Continental Drift - Another probable geological phenomena that can be explained by a targetedly-weighted flooding, which, as claimed here, moreover initially would have to focus on a collected land mass region, is seen in the fact that much of the waters of the flood came up from beneath the earth (Gen 7:11). Such tremendous bursts of waters, if done at specific, existing, contouring rivers (cf. Gen 2:10-14) could have caused what is hypothetically known as the “Continental Drift”. Where, before this, all of the land masses of the world were bunched up together into one massive, contiguous land mass as the divisional, “towards/into one place” Creation statement in Gen 1:9, 10 strongly supports, and also as it can be seen by the way in which land masses today seem to be large pieces of a congruous puzzle. This flooding would have been done around the inhabited portions of this large land mass, which, as observed above, was more than likely quite concentrated. This would have been done by God to protected these uninhabited and relatively, unaffected areas to not similarly suffer from the utter, irreparable destruction that these pre-flood, inhabited regions would be subjected to.
Such a Continental splitting at probably contouring rivers, would also have created the relatively in-land large bodies of waters known today as “Seas” (e.g., the Mediterranean Sea) vs. the larger Oceans.
It could be argued that a targetedly-weighted Genesis Flood is much more plausible if the Continents have always been in the dispersed locations where they presently are, however, as seen in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and three other cities in that valley, it is not beyond the power of God to still be able to make a targeted/surgical destruction of inhabited regions to the preservation of other surrounding areas.
As the development of world history, in deliberate fulfilment of key Biblical prophecies, has shown, this would-be splitting apart, and distancing/isolating of habitable world regions, may have also been a Divine implementing, at the Flood, of tangible means to further regulate the development of this world, geo-politically, by restraining where peoples can/would want to readily live, and thus where countries/societies be established, and especially, when this would be done. (cf. Dan 2:19-21; Rev 12:15, 16 ~ 13:11ff).
The splitting up, and spreading out of the world’s massive land mass at the Flood could also, effectively, serve as counterweights to help keep the globe in balance during the Flood, lest further drastic ecological changes be caused to occur during this destruction.
§ Post-Flood Rain - Since the hydrological cycle producing rain greatly depends on a large supplying body of evaporating water, in order to produce rain on land, if all of the world’s land mass were group together in one place before the flood, this may very well be the (behind-the-scene) scientific reasons why no rain had occurred on land. (Gen 2:5b). This would be especially true if God had first placed man in what was then the center of that large land mass, as a regrouping of the world’s continents today shows.
Also, an evenly tempered climate, due to a rightly positioned axis, may have played a part in not causing waters from the oceans to evaporate to the point of forming rain clouds, and thus precipitation.
Summary
So in summary, though a belief in a indiscriminate Genesis flood is surfacely assumed, there is ample, convincing Scientific, as well as non-Bible contradicting, but actually supporting, reasons, to believe rather that the Flood of Genesis was, for various implications of need and fairness, executed in a targetedly-weighted way by God as stated in the SOP in 3SG 78.2... which includes the reason of “greater crime” which thus would be indicative of an also present great wrath by God, as actually implied in God’s post-Flood confessing oath in Gen 9:8-17, on the sinful people living there, and thus inherently/naturally on the territory where they had been (sinfully/abominably) living, with God then deciding to instead institute/take intervening actions to more readily check the spread of especially murderous/violent sinning. (Gen 9:6)
Relatedly, see the excellent “Universal Flood” presentation by Walter J. Veith from his “Genesis in Conflict” series.
Notes
[1] Gen 1:12 does have a conjunction before “fruit bearing trees” however which could be understood as functioning “consecutive/consequentially” as ‘...then fruit trees’ i.e., as the culminating result of the previous two linked creations of ‘seed yielding herbage from grass.’
[2] Indeed, if the case had been that the entire world was as developed as the Garden of Eden, then it would not make much sense for God to, as we are told in the SOP, physically take up the Garden of Eden to heaven shortly before the flood (1SP 61.1). If only the Tree of Life needed to be so preserved/protected, it alone would have needed to be take away, and not the entire, would-be normative Garden. It was because it was distinctly God-planted/cultivated, in contrast with the rest of a still perfect Creation, that it was entirely taken up, and thus preserved.
[3] A comparison of Noah’s 500 year age Gen 5:32 with his 600 years of Gen 7:6 and the 120 probation years of Gen 6:3, along with possibly certain Hebrew syntactic (distributive) features, may indicate that Gen 5:32 is actually saying that Noah was 500 years old by the time that his three sons were all born. So if the probation time until the flood was 120 years, and Noah was 600 years old when the flood came, then none of his sons would have been any older than 120 years at the time of the flood, and thus Noah began to have children at ca. 480 years of age. Therefore this verse shows (a) how regulated/“normal” antediluvian child birthing was, and that (b) even if people were married at a relatively “early” age such as Noah’s sons by 120 (Gen 7:7) (or, e.g., 65 as Enoch was - Gen 5:21).
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