The Bible claims to be the word of God. As such, it should be always held in high esteem and reverence.

"For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe." (1 Thess. 2:13.)

"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." (2 Tim. 3:16-17.)

"But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." (Matt. 4:4.)

Man should be especially careful about rejecting what the Bible says and accepting something else in its place. We should mark it well—the Bible as God’s Word is always right. If the Bible is not God’s word, then it is simply the words of men. If so, then we can disagree with the statements in this book.

Obviously, we might be mistaken by what we think the Bible teaches. Over the history of time, there have been many false assumptions made about what someone thought the Bible taught. One example is the famous case of Galileo (1564-1642) and the Roman Catholic Church. The common assumption in that day was that the earth was stationary and flat and the sun revolved around the earth. This view made the earth the center of the universe instead of the sun. Scientists like Copernicus (1473-1543) were beginning to be able to show that the sun was the center of our universe and the planets made revolutions around the sun. The Catholic Church demanded that Galileo recant his views and sentenced him to life imprisonment. In 1979, three hundred years later, Pope John Paul II said that the Church may have been mistaken in condemning him. Indeed, they were mistaken.

This example shows that it is possible to be mistaken about what we think the Bible teaches. But after the Bible is given a fair hearing, if the Bible has spoken on the subject, we must be very careful about rejecting or contradicting what it says! To do so is to contradict God!

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." (Gen. 1:1.) How reluctant man should be to suggest something else in the place of this simple and profound statement that stands as a prologue to the Bible. To reject God’s Word is to reject God.

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children." (Hosea 4:6.)

The proposed theory of evolution stands as an alternative to the biblical proclamation of how the world began. The biblical message includes God as the center of the story of how man came into being. The theory of evolution excludes God. In that worldview, God does not exist. If God does not exist, then the Bible cannot be his Word.

"And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? Since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished." (2 Peter 3:4-6.)

Peter said that in his day there were those who were willingly ignorant of the Flood because they believed that catastrophic things like floods and the Second Coming of Jesus do not happen. They believed that all things continued day by day without any interference from God. He had never interrupted that process in the past; therefore, they believed that he would not do so in the future.

The Flood of Noah’s day answers many of the questions raised by scientists concerning the present condition of the earth. Since the Flood is purposefully rejected by many today, then other explanations must be given for the present conditions. These explanations stand in opposition to the Bible. They contradict the Scriptures.

Is there a contradiction between the ancient and imposing pyramids of Egypt and belief in the Flood? Under what conditions would there exist a conflict? If Noah’s Flood is seen as being local, just around the Mesopotamia, no conflict would exist. But if the Flood is understood as universal, worldwide in scope, then the flood waters and deep fissures would have destroyed the pyramids. A second necessary condition is that the pyramids must have been built before the Flood occurred. If they were built afterwards, then no such conflict exists. Therefore, if the flood was universal (a view that I accept) and if the pyramids were in existence prior to the Flood, then how did the pyramids escape the destruction of the flood?

The Bible says that a flood was brought upon the earth and destroyed the earth with water. "I will destroy them with the earth." (Gen. 6:13.) "The world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished." (2 Pet. 3:6.) Secondly, it is obviously true that giant pyramids exist today in Egypt. There is no denying the existence of these giant structures (called one of the Seven Wonders of the World) and the Sphinx.

Facts about the pyramids. The ruins of 35 major pyramids still stand near the Nile River in Egypt. Egyptians built pyramids to protect and preserve the bodies of people so the soul could live forever. They mummified (embalmed and dried) the bodies and hid them in large tombs. The period of the building of pyramids was from about 2700 to 1700 BC, a period of about one thousand years. Funeral ceremonies were performed in temples that were attached to the pyramids. Later Egyptian kings stopped building pyramids for their tombs and instead built secret tombs in cliffs to keep thieves from breaking into the tombs and stealing gold.

There are 10 pyramids at Giza, near Cairo, Egypt, including three of the largest and best preserved of all the Egyptian pyramids. One of these is called the Great Pyramid, believed to have been built around 4500 years ago, or about 2500 BC. The Great Pyramid contains more than 2 million stone blocks that average 2.3 metric tons each. It is about 450 feet tall and covers about 13 acres.

Pyramids also exist in Central and South America that were built by Indians. The Toltec Indians of Mexico built one of the largest structures in the world. The Indian mounds in North American were much smaller versions of the giant pyramids for the burial of their dead. A large Indian mound was built near Moundsville, WVA. It is about 70 feet high. One mound in Illinois has a base larger than the base of the Great Pyramid in Egypt. Some of these mounds are believed to be over 3000 years old, or they date to about 1000 BC.

The date of the Flood. If the pyramids were built between 2700 and 1700 BC, does this conflict with the biblical account of the Flood? The Early Dynasty Period of Egypt would date back to 3100 BC. If a universal flood occurred, it had to occur before these ancient civilizations began. When did the Flood occur? The Bible does not give us dates for the great events of the Bible. It would be interesting and sometimes helpful if it did. But it does give us genealogies that go back to Abraham (Matt.1) and Adam (Luke 3). Some Old Testament lists are given in Genesis 5 (Adam to Noah), Genesis 10 (Noah to Abram), and 1 Chronicles 1-9 (Adam to the children of Israel). There are ten generations listed from Adam to Noah, and ten from Noah to Abraham. We can date Abraham, from both biblical and secular sources, to about 2000 BC. Sometimes the date of 2167 is given for the birth of Abraham. (The Biblical Flood, Whitcomb and Morris, 478.) So far the Christian Age and Jewish Age have existed for about 2000 years each.

Is it possible that the Flood occurred prior to the beginning of Egyptian civilization and the building of the great pyramids? To know that we would need to know the exact dates for both the Flood and the pyramids. That is precisely what we do not have. Egyptian history is not easily dated. The primary source of Egyptian history comes from Manetho, an Egyptian priest who lived in the 3^rd & 4^th centuries BC. He authored a book, Egyptian History, in Greek that has been lost. We have today only references to this work in the writings of others. (See Reason & Revelation, "Which Came First, The Pyramids or the Flood?" by Alden Bass, November 2003.) This work is of course far removed in time from the ancient period of the Pharaohs.

A few things should be noted from the genealogies listed in Scripture. The lists do not include all the years from one person to another. Sometimes the generations are rounded off. Matthew relates that there were 14 generations from Abraham to David; 14 generations from David to the Babylonian captivity; and 14 generations from the captivity to Christ. (Matt. 1:17.) We could say that they were about or approximately 14 generations of each of these three groups. The Jews divided the history from Abraham to Christ in this manner, perhaps to aid in remembering the history and their ancestry. It was intended to be an exact accounting of every person in order from Abraham to Christ. (See Albert Barnes’ Notes on Matthew, 4.) Such is also true of the genealogies listed in Genesis 5 and 10-11. Even though the length of the lives of the ancient patriarchs is given, we should not think that every name has been included. In fact, again we have 10 generations from Adam to Noah and 10 generations from Noah to Abraham. Henry Morris pointed out that we have two symmetrical lists in Genesis 5 and Genesis 11. In each, there are 10 patriarchs named and the 10^th in each list has three sons named. This is "possibly an aid to memorization." (The Genesis Flood, Morris, 476.) The author does not give us a total number of years from Adam to Noah or from Noah to Abraham. He only gives us a total number of generations, with those obviously rounded off.

What this means is that there are more years in the time between Adam and the Flood, and the Flood and Abraham than the ages of 20 patriarchs added together. However, there are not hundreds of thousands of years to be found there! Note that there are 42 generations from Abraham to Christ which covers about 2000 years. Why should we think that there are hundreds of thousands of years in the 20 generations from Adam to Abraham? The patriarchs did live longer, but not that much longer.

We can conclude that there is sufficient time in the biblical chronologies for the flood to have occurred before the building of the pyramids in Egypt. There is no conflict between those two events. In addition, it is interesting that the oldest living things on earth today, which are trees, date back to and since the time of the Flood, just as the pyramids, the mounds and the Sphinx do. The bristle-cone pines in the White Mountains of California may now be the oldest living things on earth. (The Genesis Flood, Morris, 392.) (Also quoted by Morris, "Bristlecone Pines, Oldest Living Thing," National Geographic Magazine, Vol. 113, 1958, 355.) Seventeen bristle-cone pines have been dated by studying the growth rings at 4000 years old or more. A remarkable fact is that these still-living trees seem to be the original trees that grew in their present stands. There is no record of the sequoias or pines being older than any reasonable date for the Deluge of Noah’s day.

Henry Morris wrote these significant words: "In the last analysis, the only really reliable recorder to time is man himself. In any kind of natural process that might be used to determine past time, there is always the possibility that the rates may have changed as well as uncertainty regarding the initial condition. It is absolutely impossible to know beyond question that such and such a formation or deposit has an age of so many years, unless that age is supported by reliable human records of some kind. And it is, therefore, highly significant that no truly verified archaeological datings antedate the time of about 3000 BC or even later. There are numerous extant chronologies that have been handed down from various ancient people, and it is bound to be significant that none of them yield acceptable evidence that the histories of these or other peoples antedate the Biblical date for the Deluge.

It is remarkable, wrote Morris, how many different lines of evidence of a historical nature point back to a time around 3000 BC as dating the beginning of true civilization. H. R. Hall, the Egyptologist, stated, We think that the First Dynasty began not before 3400 BC and not much later than 3200 BC. The anthropologists, Ralph Linton, said, "The earliest Chinese date which can be assigned with any probability is 2250 BC based on an astronomical reference in the Book of History." (Morris, 396.) The world-wide testimony of trustworthy, recorded, history is therefore that such history begins about 3000 BC and not substantially earlier. It is not at all unreasonable to conclude that the clear testimony of all recorded human history points back to the stark reality of the great world Deluge, which remade the world in the days of Noah.

Population studies also point to this same general time period for the beginning of human life on earth after the flood. (Morris 396-398.) The present population has been reached by the population doubling 30 to 31 times since then. (2 to the nth power is set equal to the population.) By such studies, the beginning would have been about 3300 BC, at the time of the birth of Noah’s first son.