Arkeology 101

Aside from the creation account, the flood account is the event in Scripture most often targeted for scientific objections. Normally, this all-out assault isn’t limited to the flood account, but is bound up with a more general offensive directed at flood geology. What are we to make of this?

1.Local or global?

For some reason, critics direct most of their fire at the specter of a global flood. Why is that?

i) Some or many come out of a fundamentalist background. So this is their point of reference.

ii) To their own way of thinking, a global flood presents an easier target.

iii) Perhaps they also feel that young-earth creationism represents a more potent social force or political threat than old-earth creationism or theistic evolution—although, with the rise of the ID movement—any level of religiosity is coming under attack.

2. Flood or flood geology?

For some reason, those who criticize the flood account generally bundle their attack on the flood with a larger attack on flood geology. Why is that?

i) They think it’s easier to attack the flood by linking it to flood geology.

ii) Since they regard both the flood and flood geology as equally erroneous, they don’t bother to distinguish their objections.

But (1)-(2) need to be challenged.

i) As a matter of intellectual honesty, if you claim to be disproving the Bible, or some portion thereof, then the onus is on you come up with your own interpretation of Scripture. What is the best interpretation of the Biblical account?

You cannot merely depend on the interpretation offered by the opposing side, for their position is only as good as their interpretation. Even if you succeeded in disproving their position, that would not, of itself, disprove the Bible. In order to show that the Bible is incorrect, you would first need to show that their interpretation is correct, and then show that the Bible, correctly interpreted (by them), is incorrect.

ii) Likewise, disproving flood geology is not the same thing as disproving the flood. Flood geology is an exegetical and scientific construct. It intersects with Scripture, but it’s not restricted to the witness of Scripture. Hence, even if you succeeded in disproving flood geology (and there’s more than one version), that would not, of itself, disprove the Bible. To pull that off, you would have to show that you are disproving those elements of flood geology which are grounded in the correct interpretation of Scripture. Critics of the flood take far too many shortcuts.

3.Bronze Age literature.

People who disbelieve the flood tell us that this account is bound to be unscientific because it’s reported in bronze-age literature. It was written by authors or redactors who didn’t know any better.

And yet, when they mount an attack on the flood account, or flood geology, they typically construe the exegetical data in a highly anachronistic fashion. What are the standard arguments for the global interpretation? There are two basic lines of evidence:

i) The flood account employs universal quantifiers (“every,” “all”) with certain nouns.

a) At this point, the unconscious instinct of a contemporary reader is to transfer these expressions to his modern image of the world. But there’s nothing literal about that interpretation. For the reader isn’t really taking these expressions at face-value. Rather, he takes the quantifiers literally, yet when he transfers them to his own mental picture of the world, what he ends up with is not a literal interpretation of the text, but a hybrid, acontextual interpretation in which his own picture of the world supplies the object. He’s kept the quantifiers intact, but swapped in a different referent.

If, however, you’re going to take a bronze age approach, then you need to ask yourself what the narrative landmarks would conjure up to the original audience. What was their internal map? How big did they think the world was?

Indeed, we have some examples of ANE cartography, such as the Mappa Mundi and the Sargon Geography. Cf. W. Horowitz, Mesopotamian Geography (Eisenbrauns 1998).

Once you make allowance for the perspectival difference between them and us, then the descriptions could be global from the viewpoint of the original audience, but local from the viewpoint of the modern audience.

b) And this would have other consequences, regarding the number and variety of animals represented on the ark, since they would sample the implied geography of the implied reader, and not the space age generation.

Remember, the unbeliever keeps telling us that Genesis is bronze-age literature. And that, in turn, commits him to ANE cartography, not satellite cartography.

If this is indeed taken to reflect the narrative viewpoint of the flood account, then that alone, at one stroke, undercuts almost all of the stock objections to the feasibility of the account. How did the animals migrate from all over the world? How did they disperse? How were they adapted to the diet and climate aboard the ark? How did they all fit into the ark? How could they be loaded in time? How did eight passengers care for so many animals? How did they multiply and diversify so soon after the flood? What did they eat after the flood? How did marine and freshwater species survive the mixing of seawater and freshwater? How did plants survive? Where did all the water come from? Where did it go? How does a global flood account for various geological phenomena around the world?

I’m not claiming that flood geology can’t answer these questions. I’m only addressing the unbeliever on his own grounds. He is trying to saddle the flood account with a string of complications that do not, in fact, derive from his own view of Genesis. To the contrary, he is holding Genesis to an anachronistic outlook which he has superimposed on the text, despite his stated view that this is bronze-age literature.

And even from a believer’s standpoint, the text would be heard by bronze-age ears.

c) I’d add that while the flood account employs universal expressions, it obviously doesn’t intend these expressions to be taken without any limitation whatsoever, for the same account specifically exempts the occupants on the ark. So these expressions were never meant to be all-encompassing. Their force is explicitly moderated by paradigmatic exception of the ark itself.

d) Unbelievers also think that Scripture uses hyperbolic language from time to time. So when do they take the language literally here, but hyperbolic elsewhere?

ii) Another argument involves an inference from the size of the ark, as well as the depth and duration of the flood. Unlike (i), this isn’t a narrative assertion regarding the extent of the flood, be it local or global, but a possible implication. Yet there are some problems with this inference, especially from an unbeliever’s vantage-point.

a) For some thing, the unbeliever also thinks that Scripture assumes a flat-earth perspective. Indeed, the unbeliever will castigate the flood geologist for abandoning his literalism at this juncture.

I’ve discussed what is wrong with this interpretation on more than one occasion, so I won’t repeat myself here, but suppose, for the sake of argument, that the flood account is written from a flat-earth perspective. If so, then how high could the floodwaters rise or remain? Even if the world is flat, it’s not a fish tank. There are no walls to hold the water in. To the contrary, if the earth were flat, the overflowing water would run off the edge of the earth. It is therefore quite inconsistent, on the one hand, to attribute a flat earth perspective to the narrative, and then, on the other hand, to go on and on about the absurdities involved with floodwaters overtopping Mt. Everest.

b) I’d add that whether or not the duration of the flood is consistent with a local or global flood depends, in part, on what flood mechanism we postulate. The Bible gives two sources: one from the top down, and the other from the bottom up. Rainwater is one source, but the other has reference to some vaguely stated geological phenomenon (“the fountains of the deep”).

Because this reference is so unspecific, and even poetic, it leaves the flood geologist with a pretty free hand regarding what flood mechanism he should postulate.

Depending on what model you use, it would be possible to have a local flood of indefinite duration by simply damming the water supply. Mountains and hills function as natural dikes.

c) As to the ark, it’s true that Noah’s ark, or at least an ark of that size, is unnecessary in case of global flooding. But that’s a rather superficial objection. After all, a global flood is equally unnecessary. God could kill just as many men and animals without resorting to a worldwide deluge. And he could spare a remnant without resorting to an ark.

Many things in Scripture are strictly unnecessary. The kosher laws go well beyond what is necessary. But many things in Scripture have a symbolic value. Why did God bring the flood rather than some other medium of judgment? Because that medium signified a reversal of the creative process: a reversion to the formless void.

The triple-decker design is emblematic of the cosmic temple. So the design is both functional and figural. There is also septunarian numerology in play (e.g. seven days, seven animals).

iii) A local flood would also explain why the ark landed in the Ararat range (Gen 8:4). In a worldwide flood, the ark could have landed in any mountain range around the world. So why did it come down in upper Mesopotamia?

The contextual reason is that that garden of Eden was located somewhere in Mesopotamia (Gen 2:10-14). And the human race was still confined to this general region when the flood struck. So that is where the ark was launched. And that was the vicinity of the flooded region.