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(This is a fun look at the great flood based on the literal interpretation
of the bible and our current study of the earth.
Please feel free to check and correct any math mistakes I make. :) This
turned out a bit long.)
Math of the flood
The bible says the flood covered every mountain (Gen 7:19-20). Mount
Everest is the current largest mountain. Its approx 5.5 miles above
sea level. I have rounded it down to 5 miles because its better to under
estimate than over estimate.
There are some theories that mountains weren’t as high as they
are now, and that the flood only flooded a 17,000 foot high mountain.
However there are flaws to both of these, and ill address them later.
The Radius of the Earth = 3963 miles
The Radius of the earth with 5 miles of water = 3968 Miles.
The volume of the earth = 260711882973.3396 cubic miles
The volume of the earth with water = 261699925947.5533 cubic miles.
261699925947.5533 - 260711882973.3396 = 988042974.2136999965
So the volume of the flood water = 988,042,974.2136999965 cubic miles.
But lets round it to 988,042,974 Cubic Miles.
If this water was put into a sphere, it would have a radius of 618 Miles.
According to this site (http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthwherewater.html)
there is a total of 326,000,000 Cubic Miles of water on the earth. So
the flood waters were 3 times the total amount of water on the entire
earth.
The data says there there is approx 9,016,000 Cubic Miles of water that
is currently underground or not filling a space on the surface (like
an ocean). These sources of water would include Ground water, soil moisture,
ice caps and glaciers.
The bible says that some of the water came from the ground and some
from rain (Gen 7:11). So if we gave the bible the benefit of the doubt
and say that 10X more water resided under ground then, than it does
now (10 times more water in the soil and ground water) and that the
ice caps melted. We would get 27,160,000 cubic miles of water. It would
still only equal 3% of the total flood waters.
Lets take a look at a square foot section of the earth. Over the course
of 40 days, it would rain 25608 cubic feet(instead of 26400 cubic feet
because of the 792 feet of ground water). We can use this data because
we are dealing with a 25608 foot, by 1 foot by 1 foot column.
25608 ft^3 / 40 days = 640.2 cubic feet of water per day per square
foot
640.2 ft^3 / 24 hours = 26.7 cubic feet of water per hour per square
foot
2.6.7 ft^3 / 60 minutes = 0.4 cubic feet of water per minute per square
foot. Or 3 gallons of water per minute per square foot.
That would equal 25.5 pounds of water per minute per square foot.
It doesn’t seem like too much water at first, but lets look at
it outside of a square foot.
A standard american football field is 360 ft x 160ft (including end
zones). 57,600 square feet.
So that would be 0.4 ft^3 * 57,600 = 23,040 cubic feet of water per
minute on the football field. Or 172,351 Gallons of water. That would
weigh 1,464,983.5 pounds or 732.5 tons of water per minute, will fall
on that football field.
The ark is said to be 300 cubits long, by 50 cubits wide (Gen 6:15).
The dictionary definition of a cubit says that its between 17”
and 22” so ill use the average of those at 19.5” so the ark
was approx 487.5 feet long 81.25 feet wide. Or 39,731.25 square feet.
Assuming that the top of the ark was the same approx square footage.
That would mean that 15,892.5 cubic feet of water would fall on the
ark per minute or 118,884 Gallons per minute. Or 505 tons of water per
minute falling on the ark.
After the flood, it was said that a dove brought back an olive leaf
(Gen 8:11). Olive trees grow at the utmost of 5000ft. The weight and
power of the flood would probably have destroyed olive trees. The few
leaves that would remain would have settled down in the mud.
Flood Theories
I have heard a couple different flood theories about why the literal
flood could have happened. None that I have heard so far hold any water.
:)
For a slightly more indepth look go here Flood
Models
First: Is that the flood, flooded only high hills (Gen 7:19),
and yet it covered the entire earth because there were no big mountains
before the flood. The flood water then somehow formed all the mountains.
There are a couple problems with this. First of all, animal fossils
of different dates layer these mountains If the mountains formed from
a small hill all at once, then every animal fossil should be around
the same date. Second, the earthquakes and geological disasters of the
formation of these mountains would be catastrophic. Much more compared
to the flood. Both science and the bible lack any reference to a giant
catastrophic earthquake and formation of 5.5 mile mountains. So its
pretty safe to say that these mountains were there during the flood.
Second: The flood only flooded the top of a 17,000 high mountain.
This would mean that area was left on the earth. So taking the bible
literally, god didn’t actually cover the entire earth. Nor would
the flood secure the death of every animal and man on the planet, as
there was still land left for them to run too. Most would die, but a
few could remain.
Third: Animals on the ark were taken as babies, so they could
fit them all on board.
There are a couple problems with this. First of all, there are quite
a few animals that need their mothers to take care of them. This would
increase the work load on Noah's family to way beyond the ability of
8 people. To act as a constant parent to many, many babies.
The second problem comes from the fact that many animals learn how to
act when they are young. Being held in a captive environment for part
of their young days would possibly hinder their ability to live in the
real world.The ark was only floating for half a year, however that could
be enough to effect some animal babies. However, an adult animal would
still remember how to live in the real world and it wouldn’t have
an effect.
The third problem is that some animals grow up in the amount of time
the ark was afloat. One example is the Blue Whale (yes the blue whale
would have needed to be on the ark), it can grown from a baby to an
adult in the amount of time the ark was floating.
Fourth: Only a small amount of animals were taken aboard, many
micro evolved afterwards.
If this was true, then we should be able to find evidence for my "creationist
Hypothesis" found here Creationism
As Science
Noahs Fish problem
Although some believe the bible only says that the Animals on the land
died there are many fish that are sensitive to the salt content in the
water, the flood would have lowered it and caused many fish to die.
But since those fish are alive today, they must have been on board the
ark. This posses an interesting problem for Noah. Not only did noah
have to load all of those animals, he needed to find the correct salt
and PH content water for these sensitive fish. He then needed to fill
tanks for them and transfer the fish into those tanks. The bible lacks
any description of how this activity was done.
Noah's Whale problem
Whales couldn’t survive the flood, as the amount of water falling
would displace the air and not allow them to breath, it would make it
hard for them to find food, and would again change the salinity of the
water.
Now, whales pose and interesting problem. Not only do they need water
to swim in, but they need an air pocket to get oxygen from. This air
pocket would need to be replenished with fresh oxygen, without filling
up with water from the flood.
Just two blue whales alone would pose a big problem. If we go with an
average size as 70 feet long, 16 feet wide and 16 feet tall. If you
built a tank that the two whales could move in but was cramped. It would
span the entire width of the ark at 81.25 feet. Around 145 feet long
(only 5 feet longer than the two whales end to end). If the height of
it was cramped and was only 25 feet high, only 9 feet of room to move,
(this would limit the other two stories on noah ark (which was 48.75
feet tall) to 11.88 feet tall for each story). The tank would be 294,531.25
cubic feet of water or 2,203,246.75 Gallons of water. That would equal
9,363.8 Tons of water. For two animals. Not to mention the problem of
getting the blue whales into the ark, as it was sealed before the flood
waters came (Gen 7:13,16).
“God Did It”
A common explination for the flood is that “God did it” since
he can do anything he wants. Now this is fine, however it does pose
a couple of problems.
1) If “god did it” why didn’t he have everything
he did written down in the bible? Why does the bible state the small
fact that god closed the ark’s door (Gen 7:16), but not that he
protected it from all the flood water?
2) If you take the literal interpretation of the bible as the
truth, then god did nothing else than was is written in the bible. To
say that god did do something else, is to rewrite a part of the bible,
or to not take it literally. To rewrite the bible and to put words and
actions in gods mouth is not something a christian would want to do.
:)
-Ari
Last Update 8/10/03
©03 Ari
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