Is the flood of Noah a parabolic legend?

I’m going to comment on Paul Seely’s classification of the flood account as a “parabolic legend.” I’ll be quoting from parts 1-2 of his 3-part series at BioLogos, as well as his WTJ article:

“Noah’s Flood: Its Date, Extent, and Divine Accommodation,” WTJ 66 (2004): 291-311.

http://biologos.org/blog/the-flood-not-global-barely-local-mostly-theological-I

http://biologos.org/blog/the-flood-not-global-barely-local-mostly-theological-ii

Before commenting on Seely, I’d like to make a general observation. There are scholars like Bill Arnold and Peter Enns who engage the flood account at a purely textual level, as if this is just a story. A literary construct with no real world correlative.

But why think ancient people took no interest in natural disasters? Why think ancient people didn’t have a cultural memory of natural disasters? They led precarious lives, at the mercy of natural forces that could, and sometimes did, wipe them out.

Take this passage of Scripture:

The words of Amos, who was among the shepherds of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake (Amos 1:1).

Amos is using a major earthquake to date his calling. He takes for granted the fact that his audience remembered the event. That this was an unforgettable experience for those who lived through it.

Take St. Lucia’s flood in 1287. Take the volcanic destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 AD. Take the Antioch earthquake in 115 AD. Take the Minoan eruption (c. 1600 BC), which may have inspired the legend of Atlantis. 

Why assume ancient people just invent stories about natural disasters?

Data from various scientific disciplines provides a clear indication that Noah’s Flood did not cover the globe of the earth.

There are, of course, evangelical scientists who field stock objections to a global flood. For instance:

Leonard Brand & Arthur Chadwick, Faith, Reason, and Earth History: A Paradigm of Earth and Biological Origins by Intelligent Design (Andrews University Press; 3rd ed., 2016)

Jonathan Sarfati, The Genesis Account: A theological, historical, and scientific commentary on Genesis 1-11(2015)

Andrew Snelling, Earth's Catastrophic Past: Geology, Creation, & the Flood (2014)

Kurt Wise, Faith, Form, and Time: What the Bible Teaches and Science Confirms about Creation and the Age of the Universe (2000)

Before considering that data, however, we must first determine a rough earliest probable date for the Flood. If the Flood is an actual historical event, it must touch down in the empirical data of history somewhere. We can make a rough approximation of its date from the two genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11. At one end is Adam, whose culture is Neolithic and therefore can be dated no earlier than around 9,000 or 10,000 B.C. At the other end is Abraham who can be dated to approximately 2000 B.C. In both genealogies the Flood occurs in the middle of these two ends, and therefore roughly at 5500 or 6000 B.C. An even clearer indication of the Flood’s date is implied by the statement that shortly after the Flood, Noah planted a vineyard. This implies the growing of domesticated grapes, which do not show up in the archaeological record until c. 4000 B.C.1 The biblical Flood is therefore probably not earlier than 4000 or maybe 5000 B.C.

The genealogy in Gen 5 begins with Adam, who is clearly described as a farmer in a garden (Gen 2:15) and who after his expulsion from the garden continues to do the very same kind of work (Gen 3:23 and 2:5,15). Genesis 4:1,2 in the light of 4:25 imply that Cain and Abel were contemporaries of Adam. Since Adam and Cain were farmers and Abel a shepherd, and neither domesticated crops nor domesticated sheep or goats appear in the archaeological record until c. 9000 B.C., Adam's earliest possible date is c. 9000 B.C.' Adam's probable date, however, appears to be later. Genesis 2:8 tells us that God planted a garden (see 9:20; 21:33; Lev 9:23) that had fruit trees (2:9, 16; 3:2, 7). The implication of the words "plant" and "garden" are that the fruit trees are domesticated fruit trees. Adam has to "work" the garden (2:15), but he does not have to domesticate wild trees.

i) Notice that his entire argument hinges on a Neolithic date for Adam. That’s the terminus ad quo. All his subsequent arguments build on that pivotal assumption.

ii) A Neolithic dating scheme usually assumes a chronological progression, where human culture passes through a series of stages, viz.,

Paleolithic

Mesolithic

Neolithic

Copper Age

Bronze Age

Iron Age

This is subject to further subdivisions, viz. Neolithic prepottery.

Neolithic culture is characterized by bone and stone implements, primitive husbandry and horticulture. 

iii) There are problems with using this classification scheme to date Adam. For one thing, Gen 2 says precious little about Adamic technology. Moreover, nothing in Gen 2 requires farming or the domestication of animals. The garden animals were already tame. Moreover, the garden already had edible wild vegetation.

Indeed, life in Eden stands in contrast to conditions outside the garden. That’s one reason the expulsion from Eden was a physical hardship (Gen 3:17-19).

iv) In addition, it’s my impression that many cultures subsist in a state of technological stasis, absent some external stimulus. Cultures don’t automatically undergo technological progress. A lot depends on the natural resources which their particular locale provides. There’s not much incentive to develop more technology than you need to survive or flourish. Some environments are more hospitable than others. Life is easier in some places than others.

For instance, Mesopotamians were motivated to develop flood control technology. But unless you live in a flood zone, there’s not the same incentive.

Likewise, competitive military technology can be a spur to innovation (e.g. metallurgy). If your enemy uses spears, it behooves you to develop long bows. If your enemy uses long bows, it behooves you to develop crossbows. If your enemy uses bronze weaponry, it behooves you to develop iron weaponry. If your enemy uses swords, it behooves you to develop muskets. If your enemy uses fortified cities, it behooves you to develop cannons. And so on and so forth.

Take North America, South America, and South Pacific Islanders before contact with Europeans. Didn’t many “Indians” operate at a roughly Neolithic level for centuries on end? If European colonization hadn’t jump-started their culture, wouldn’t many of those cultures remain at a Neolithic level indefinitely?

To take another comparison, weren’t some Mesoamerican Indian cultures (e.g. Maya, Inca, Aztec) more “advanced” than many North American Indian tribes (e.g. Iroquois, Plains Indians)?

The fact that a particular culture is technologically primitive doesn’t strike me as a reliable chronological indicator. Even in the 20C, we’ve discovered “stone age” tribes in the Amazon jungle.  

iv) Seely also confuses technological innovation with cultural diffusion. Technological innovation only requires a smart inventor. But technological innovation could be quite localized. Archeological evidence assumes fairly widespread practice. After all, given how little evidence survives the ravages of time, there had to be a large initial sample to have trace evidence millennia later. The first datable evidence we happen to have for a particular custom is hardly concomitant with when the custom was first introduced. We’d expect the custom to antedate our residual evidence.

When tells in the Near East which date from 5000 to the time of Abraham are examined, no evidence of a global flood is found. In fact, overlapping layers of occupation, one on top of the other, often with the remains of mud-brick houses in place, are found intact spanning the entire period. No matter what specific date one might put on the flood after 5000 B.C., there were sites in the Near East at that date where people lived and remained undisturbed by any serious flood. In other words, not only is there no evidence of a flood that covered the Near East, there is archaeological evidence that no flood covered the Near East between 5000 and the time of Abraham.

In fact there are continuous cultural sequences which overlap each other from 9500 to 3000 B.C. and down into the times of the patriarchs and later.

Let’s grant that contention for the sake of argument. It’s only as good as his Neolithic starting point. What if the flood took place before then?

So, there is an objective basis for an actual biblical Flood. Why then do I title this post “Barely Local?” The answer is that neither the flood of 2900 B.C. nor any other actual local flood, such as the Black Sea flood, nor the melting of ice caps at various historical points closely fits the biblical description. Local flood theories do not fit the biblical account with regard to secondary issues such as lasting one year and destroying all the birds (even in a local area).

The fact that all birds died in the Flood, leaving alive only Noah and those with him on the ark (Gen 7:21-23) makes it clear that the Flood was not local. In a local flood a small minority of birds might die, but most of them would fly away to dry land.

i) Which assumes the birds were brought on board to preserve them from the flood. But a local flood doesn’t require that rationale. Rather, ravens and homing pigeons were used in ancient maritime navigation to locate land.

ii) Keep in mind that even in a global flood, some waterfowl could presumably survive on carrion, driftwood, &c.

More importantly, no local flood theory agrees with the biblical account at the most critical points: landing the ark in the Ararat mountains, covering the entire Near East (Genesis 9:19, “all the earth” = Genesis 10),

The statement of Gen 7:19 that water covered "all the high mountains under all the heavens" contextually includes the high mountains under the heavens of the country of Ararat (Gen 8:4), ancient Urartu which centered around Lake Van. Since the country of Ararat was thought to have been located at the northern extent of the earth (Gen 10:2; Ezek 38:6) at the "the nether end of the known world," it is not just Mesopotamia but the entire extent of the earth as it was then conceived that is in view.

i) Notice that Seely distinguishes between a worldwide flood and a local flood which covers the known world. In his opinion, the narrator is describing what is actually a local flood, but global from the blinkered perspective of the ancient narrator.

ii) But if, by his own admission, the flood was actually local, then what would localize the flood are natural barriers like mountains.

iii) What about the Lake Van area?

The “mountains of Ararat” of 8:4 most likely refers to the foothills where the Mesopotamian plains in the north yield to the highlands near the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. B. Arnold, Genesis (Cambridge 2009), 105.

The plateaus around the lakes are about 1.6 km. (1 mi.) above sea level, surrounded by even higher mountains. “Urartu,” The New International Dictionary of Biblical Archaeology, 463.

According to Seely’s own depiction, the land of Ararat marks the outer limits of the flood. And what, exactly, would prevent the floodwaters from extending beyond that region? Presumably the mountain range.

So the mental picture this generates is rising water submerging the plateaus or foothills, but contained by the mountain range behind it. Like water in a saucer. That would be consistent with the landmarks that Seely educes.

In addition, although the ark is said to come to rest on the "mountains" (plural) of Ararat rather than on a particular peak like Mt. Ararat, Gen 8:3-5 implies that the ark landed very high up in the Ararat mountains, because after the ark grounded the water had to recede for another two and a half months before the tops of the surrounding mountains became exposed. It is perhaps possible that the ark did not land on what is now called Mt. Ararat, but it must have landed on some higher-than-average mountain in Urartu or else the tops of the surrounding mountains would have been exposed much sooner. Genesis 8:3-5 thus implies that the water was even deeper than 8000 feet.

It’s not clear to me how Seely is visualizing this process.

i) Seems to me that where the ark ran aground would depend on whatever the ark happened to be floating above at the time floodwaters were receding. From what I’ve read, the land of Ararat is a hilly region with many narrow valleys. So, for instance, the ark might be caught in the eddy of a steep mountain cove. The walls of the cove would ring the ark, like a toy boat in a bathtub after you pull the plug. The elevation would vary, depending on the location of the cove. 

ii) If the ark came to rest in a steep mountain cove, Noah wouldn’t be able to see above or around the surrounding hillsides. Indeed, that would be a good reason to release the raven and the homing pigeon.

That the Bible is describing the Flood as covering the entire earth as it was then conceived is perhaps most conclusively seen in the fact that the primeval ocean of Gen 1:2, half of which was placed above the firmament on the second day of creation (Gen 1:6, 7) and half of which was placed around and under the earth on the third day of creation (Gen 1:9, 10; Job 26:10; Pss 24:2; 136:6; Prov 8:27b) comes back from above the firmament and from below the earth (Gen 7:11; cf. 8:2) to again cover the earth with water."

Of course, the flood is not a literal de-creation. It is analogous to creation in reverse.

Given the probable date of the Flood, we can also ask the question. Is there any archaeological evidence for a Flood in the Near East between 4000 (or 5000 at the earliest) and 2300 B.C.? The short answer is that the only evidence of serious flooding in the Near East during that time period is from riverine floods.

And since the biblical account is describing a flood much more extensive than that, we have no archaeological evidence for the Flood as it is described in Scripture.

In addition, since even local riverine floods normally leave some evidence by way of silt layers, a year-long flood (Gen 7:11; 8:13-14) covering all the high mountains (Gen 7:19) from around Sardinia to Afghanistan and from the Black Sea to the Gulf of Aden (Gen 9:19; 10:32) would certainly have left physical evidence in the tells of the Near East. These tells should all show a silt layer or at least a sterile layer dating to the same time period throughout the Near East.

The walls of mud brick buildings, which are found on most sites, should show serious water erosion, and this erosion should appear at the same time period throughout the Near East. Also, if the Flood destroyed all but eight people, most of these tells should show a long period of vacancy following their silt or sterile layer, while the population regrew and expanded.

i) This objection piggybacks on Seely’s dubious timeframe.

ii) Also, although I’m no expert, I don’t see why we’d expect evidence for an ancient flood to be coextensive with the scope of the flood. Wouldn’t the evidence tend to be intermittent, even if the flood was more widespread? Depending on local terrain and precipitation, spring melt, wouldn’t some silt layers be washed away? Wouldn’t subsequent water erosion erode some of the flood deposit?

From these passages in Ezekiel, Gen 49:25, and Deut 33:13 along with ancient Near Eastern parallels, OT biblical scholars, including the consensus of evangelical OT scholars, agree that the "fountains of the great Deep" which supplied the water for the Flood were fresh water terrestrial fountains drawing upon a subterranean sea.

Ground water and soil moisture, which would be the modernized counterpart to the subterranean ocean that supplied the water for the tree in Ezek 31, the agricultural crops in Gen 49 and Deut 33, and the terrestrial fountains of Gen 7:11, constitute just 0.615 percent of all water on earth. If 100 percent of it flowed out upon the earth, it would flood the earth to a depth of less than 60 feet. It is obvious then that if they are transmuted into modern terms, the "fountains of the great Deep" are completely inadequate to cover all the high mountains of even the Near East.

Let’s grant that contention for the sake of argument. If, according to Seely’s own analysis, the narrative doesn’t identify adequate water reserves to flood the whole world or even the entire ANE, then, on internal grounds, why is that not an argument for a local flood from the viewpoint of the narrator?

Most telling is the fact that Noah is treated in Gen 9 as a new Adam, a new beginning for mankind.

But that would be consistent with a local flood that’s anthropologically universal. And some of the narrative landmarks dovetail with that particular outlook.

Gen 2:10-14 situates Eden somewhere in Mesopotamia. So that would be the epicenter of human population. Man would migrate from that focal point.

And the ark lands in northern Mesopotamia (Gen 8:4). That would be consistent with a flood that originates in Mesopotamia. The diluvial point of origin would correspond to the human point of origin. The scope of the flood would correspond to the biogeography of human dispersion at that stage of human history, where man radiates out from Eden, but is still confined to the ANE–which would also be consistent with the Table of Nations (Gen 10).

I conclude that Seely’s objections to the local flood interpretation are fallacious. Moreover, he doesn’t engage the most astute proponents of the global flood interpretation. So his argument fails on both counts.