The Genesis Flood- Global Or Local?

The genesis flood narrative, commonly known as Noah and the Ark is present in the chapters 6 to 9 of the book of genesis in the bible. It narrates the story of how Noah preached to his people and how the flood was sent to destroy mankind due to their continual misdeeds.

The Ongoing Debate

There have been continual debates about the nature of the flood- whether it was global or not? Some authors state that the present features of the earth provide sufficient evidence regarding the flood being global. However, there is another party of authors and geologists who strongly oppose this view. According to them, the books claiming that the flood was global are full of errors and mistakes.

The Problems that make a Global Flood less likely

Those who oppose the idea of a global flood out forward many arguments in order to support their opinion. The first among them is that the words of the bible do not exactly state that the flood was global. The words used can also be translated into “The Whole Land”. Also, the word “tebel”, which refers to the whole earth is not used in the narration.

Secondly, historians state that at that time, only a small portion of the earth’s area was occupied by people. People thought of the regions near their homeland to be the only areas of land on earth and the rest was supposed to be oceans. This is supported by the ancient maps from Greece and other areas. It is stated that as only a small area of the earth was inhabited, a local flood could have done the job too.

In addition to that, many geologists and scientists state that a very large amount of water woud be required to flood the whole world. In order to condense such a high volume of water, an extremely high pressure would be needed. Such high pressure would be fatal for all organisms.

Furthermore, the rivers Tigris and Euphrates are mentioned in Genesis 2:14. In case a universal flood would have occurred, it would have left behind a large number of sediment rocks. These rocks would have covered the above mentioned rivers. As it is clear, this is not the case.

This matter continues to remain of great interest. The people who oppose the idea of a global flood do not necessarily imply that the biblical contents are false. They just state the context of the bible can take the meaning of a local flood too and support this idea because it aligns with the available evidence.

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