Custance on the Flood

There’s often a stark asymmetry between those who argue for the global flood interpretation and those who argue for the local flood interpretation. Global flood proponents usually focus on exegetical arguments whereas local flood proponents usually focus on scientific arguments.

Some Bible scholars like John Walton and Ronald Youngblood argue for a local flood on exegetical grounds, but that’s fairly rare. Another exception is the late Arthur Custance. I think some of his arguments are weaker than others. I’m going to quote and occasionally comment on some of his arguments. I’m referring this monograph: The Flood Local or Global? (Zondervan 1979). Pagination is from my paperback copy.

His monograph is currently available online:

http://209.240.156.133/Library/Volume9/index.html

So we begin with a brief examination of the Hebrew word   (eretz) which is translated "earth," as in Genesis 6:4, 5, 6, 11, 12, etc. According to Young's Analytical Concordance, the Hebrew word is translated "country" 140 times, "ground" 96 times and "earth" and "land" frequently. It is also rendered "field" once and by several other words in a very small number of instances. Assuming that Young's list is exhaustive, actual count shows that the word is translated "earth" about 677 times and translated "land" 1,458 times. Moreover, of the 677 occurrences, in at least one hundred instances the word may be equally, if not more appropriately, rendered "land" rather than "earth." Whereas in the cases where it is translated "land" in the English, the instances in which "earth" would have been more appropriate are rare. That is to say, the choice of "earth" or "land" as a translation of the original in any particular instance is a matter of context: and on the whole, if we exclude the account of the Flood, usage elsewhere shows that the context favours the word land rather than earth. To put this another way, Hebrew writers evidently employed the word with its much more restricted meaning about four times as frequently as they employed it with a broader meaning. Where they wished to make it absolutely clear that they meant "earth" in the sense of soil, the word (adamah) was used, as for example in Genesis 2:5, "there was not a man to till the ground." And where they wished to convey the idea of the whole habitable earth, they used the word  (tebel), as in Psalm 24:1, "the world and they that dwell therein."

     A good illustration of the inconsistency of the Authorized Version in this particular context may be seen in Exodus 10:13, 14, where it is stated clearly that there was a plague brought upon Egypt only (for the land of Goshen probably escaped), and it is surely not intended by the writer that the whole earth was in view. Yet in Exodus 10:15 the Authorized Version has left the impression that the plague did indeed cover "the whole earth." My own studies have convinced me that in many subtle ways the AV is to be preferred to the Revised Standard Version. However, in this instance the RSV has translated Exodus 10:15 more correctly, rendering the phrase in question "the whole land."

     Now, it is quite surprising what a change this substitution makes in Genesis 6, 7, and 8. For example, in Genesis 6:11-13 the text would then appear as:

         The land also was corrupt before God, and the land was filled with violence.

    And God looked upon the land, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the land. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the land is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the land.

     With this quite proper substitution, the view is contracted considerably [ibid. pp15-16].

…it seems to me that the phrase "all flesh had corrupted its way" must apply morally only to mankind, though in effect animal life may have been badly disturbed as a consequence…Accordingly it seems that the term "all flesh" in verse 12 means the entire human race at that time. This race had corrupted itself and brought a judgment upon the land in which all other flesh (i.e., the animals) suffered as a consequence (Genesis 7:21) [pp16-18].

One might object that in the same account, the scope of “all flesh” clearly includes animal life:

And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female (6:19).

And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind (7:21).

Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth (8:17).

However, it’s not the “all flesh” phrase alone that includes animal life. Rather, it’s these additional descriptors which unpack the scope of the phrase within the narrative. The phrase itself is unspecific.

We can also see that in another Pentateuchal passage:

For who is there of all flesh, that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of fire as we have, and has still lived? (Deut 5:26).

Here it clearly refers to humans. So the scope of the phrase is delimited by the context, and not the import of the phrase itself.

We are told in Deuteronomy 2:25 that at this early period in their national history God had put the fear of the Israelites upon "the nations that were under the whole heaven." It seems doubtful if this geographic range included any more than the Middle East, and probably only part of this [p19].

     In Genesis 41:57, "all countries" came into Egypt to buy corn, for the famine was sore "in all lands." The story of those famine years reads like a firsthand account -- not a revelation. The Egyptian government would hardly have sold corn (i.e., wheat) to people in China who lived on rice or to those in the New World who lived on maize. China's history goes way back beyond this period, and certainly man was in the New World prior to 2000 B.C., antedating this particular period of famine [p19].

There are certain figures indicated in the text which, if we are rightly interpreting them, provide some rather surprising information about the rate at which the waters receded. In Genesis 8:4 we are told that the ark came to rest, i.e., grounded, on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. If we are permitted to assume that the draught of the ark (that is, the distance from the bottom of the keel to the water-line) was in the neighbourhood of fifteen cubits, or about twenty-five feet, it means that the water was just twenty-five feet deep at the spot on which the ark came to rest. It could hardly have been much more for the ark to have grounded at all, but even if it were twice that amount and the draught of the ark accordingly increased, the picture is not seriously affected.

     The record states then that the waters receded (Genesis 8:5) until the first day of the tenth month, at which time apparently it became possible to see dry land.(2) Before this, the raven released from the ark had not found any resting place within easy flying distance so that we must assume that the peak on which the ark was actually grounded had not appeared above the water up to this time. Obviously, if land could be seen, the raven would have found a place to alight instead of wandering to and fro as depicted in Genesis 8:7. In this interval, therefore, from the seventeenth day of the seventh month to the first day of the tenth month, the water level had fallen perhaps twenty-five or thirty feet. It is clear that as soon as the level had fallen by the amount equal to the draught of the vessel, dry land would appear (see Figure 1).

     Thus the interval between these dates, a period of about seventy-three days, was the time required for the water to leave the "water-line" of the vessel and reach a level twenty-five or thirty feet below it. The seventy-three days are made up of the thirteen days which remained of the seventh month, the twenty-nine days of the eighth and thirty days of the ninth month and the first day of the tenth month; and twenty-five feet in seventy-three days is the equivalent of a drop in level of about four inches per day (see Genesis 8:4,5).

I would say personally that anyone who takes the text wholly seriously will be forced to conclude that the event had a quite limited magnitude in terms of depth of water, simply because the run off was so slow. This run-off can be shown from the figures given in the text to have been only a few inches per day!

     Now, this total is not much affected if the months were twenty-nine or thirty days. For the present purposes, we have a period of perhaps approximately seventy-three days for the water to fall from the water-line of the ark till the ark was "high and dry," as indicated in Figure 1. There does not seem to me any other way of reading these figures nor interpreting their implication. So we have a rate of decline at a critical period of the Flood of only four inches per twenty-four hours. Moreover, the waters were only 324 days running off. . . .  From the cessation of the rain to the time the waters were fully abated -- i.e., from the twenty-eighth day of the third month (Genesis 7:11,12) to the twenty-seventh day of the second month of the following year (Genesis 8:14) -- the total number of days, according to William Lowe's calendar, is seen to be 324 in all. A very approximate estimate, at a run-off rate of four inches per day, gives a total depth of water of about 108 feet [pp22-25].

There are one or two observations which may be made at this point regarding these traditions. First of all, they do not demonstrate that the Flood was worldwide in the geographical sense, though this claim has often been made for them. If such were really the case, it would mean that in every part of the world there were a few local survivors who originated the local traditions -- in which case the biblical story is in error in claiming that only one family actually escaped: and so are all the other traditions that make this claim! This brings us to a second observation. Not one of these traditions puts the scene of the catastrophe in some other part of the world as an event far removed from them in which they themselves did not share, but of which they had knowledge. This can only mean that there was but one single Flood and all mankind was involved in it, for they are evidently referring to the same event in which their own forebears were involved [p33].

Worldwide traditions of a great flood are certainly intriguing. But I wish I knew more about the sources, the dates of the sources, and so forth.

     It is sometimes argued that the Flood must have been worldwide or God would merely have advised Noah to migrate beyond its geographic limits. At first sight this seems a reasonable argument. Moreover, animals and birds could surely have migrated under God s direction by themselves, thus sparing Noah and his family a great deal of labour.

    There are several responses to these points. To begin with, God intended to exterminate the whole race except for Noah and his family -- but not without fair warning. The labour of Noah in constructing the ark was to serve as a continuing and forceful testimony against the rest of mankind, who in spite of the magnitude of the undertaking evidently paid no attention to it [pp33-34].

There is much evidence to show that the domestication of animals was first undertaken somewhere in this general area. Assuming that such species as had been domesticated in the centuries between Adam and Noah were confined to the areas settled by man and had not spread beyond this, any Flood which destroyed man would also wipe out these animals. The process of domestication would then have to be begun all over again and probably under far less ideal conditions.

     We have already considered the reasons why the migration of Noah was not suitable for God's purposes. It is almost certain that domesticated animals could not have migrated alone. Although such animals do turn wild upon occasion, they survive in this state only when they are not subjected to predators -- and in the world outside of human settlements at that time, such predators were probably numerous. Domesticated sheep, cattle, pigs, fowl, goats, perhaps camels, and possibly asses -- to mention only the more common ones -- might not have fared too well in a natural environment still quite outside man's control. For this reason, if for no other, some animals at least would have to be taken on board -- but these were probably of the domesticated varieties [pp35-36].

Here Custance seems to be limiting the animal cargo to livestock. That’s interesting, and that’s a consideration which is often overlooked. However, the flood account isn’t that discriminating. Rather, it distinguishes between clean and unclean animals.

Moreover, even if we think the animal cargo was more restricted, it would make sense to include game animals as well as domesticated animals–not to mention sacrificial animals.

There were only four men in the ark. These men represented the crew. They did not have sails or other ship's gear to attend to, but they did have animals to care for. Any farmer would tell you that thirty or forty head of cattle requiring feeding, watering, and cleaning out daily could occupy considerable time. The record states that there would be seven pairs of each of the clean animals; this means fourteen head of every clean species. Besides this there were to be two of all the others, however many this may have been. Even if there were only two species of clean animals (e.g., sheep and cows) this would mean quite a bit of work [p36].

That’s a stock objection to the global flood interpretation. However, it’s been argued that ancient people had laborsaving devices for mass feeding. Cf. John Woodmorappe, Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study (ICR 1996).

The dimensions of the ark are given in Genesis as 300 cubits long, 50 cubits across, and 30 cubits deep. This is generally interpreted as meaning that the vessel was 450 feet by 75 feet by 45 feet. This is an immense structure. It may be that the ark really was of such proportions: but it may also be that the terms of measurement are no longer correctly known. The cubit may not at this early period have been equal to eighteen inches [p37].

Custance doesn’t offer any justification for this claim. But there are scholars who agree with him. Cf. K. Mathews, Genesis 1-11:26 (B&H 1996), 364n26.

Many primitive people use birds for navigation purposes, and it happens that the two types most frequently used are the raven and the pigeon. Both these birds have long been found in close association with human settlements, and the history of early navigation could not be written without reference to the use of these animals. It was customary to take on board a certain number of birds of either kind which, once the vessel was some distance out to sea and out of sight of land, were released one at a time. Some of these birds -- the pigeon variety in particular -- would head directly back home, thus giving the mariner a proper sense of direction. This was particularly important when the sun was not visible and prior to the use of the magnetic compass. The raven type was often used to locate land other than the point of departure: If no land was sufficiently nearby, the birds would return to the ship and would be released later only after traveling some further distance. According to James Hornell, this system was used by the Vikings in the re-discovery of Iceland in A.D. 874. (9)

     Homing pigeons were carried on board to be used on the return trip in a similar way. The Polynesians used much the same method to re-locate comparatively small islands in the vast Pacific [pp39-40].

This is interesting because it corroborates the realism of the flood account in one of those incidental details. This is consistent with ancient maritime navigation.

Also, keep in mind that the Israelites were not a seafaring people, so we wouldn’t expect them to make this up.