Post by iris89 on Oct 1, 2011 17:12:08 GMT -5
The Great Deluge-Flood of Noah’s Day
INTRODUCTION:
The great deluge/flood of Noah’s day is recorded in the Book of Genesis, the first book in the Bible. The account of the flood is as follows in Genesis Chapter 7 and 8:
“And Jehovah said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.
2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee seven and seven, the male and his female; and of the beasts that are not clean two, the male and his female:
3 of the birds also of the heavens, seven and seven, male and female, to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.
4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living thing that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the ground.
5 ¶ And Noah did according unto all that Jehovah commanded him.
6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.
8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creepeth upon the ground,
9 there went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, male and female, as God commanded Noah.
10 And it came to pass after the seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
11 ¶ In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
13 ¶ In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark;
14 they, and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, every bird of every sort.
15 And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh wherein is the breath of life.
16 And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God commanded him: and Jehovah shut him in.
17 ¶ And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth.
18 And the waters prevailed, and increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.
19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered.
20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
21 ¶ And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both birds, and cattle, and beasts, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
22 all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, of all that was on the dry land, died.
23 And every living thing was destroyed that was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and creeping things, and birds of the heavens; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only was left, and they that were with him in the ark.
24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.
8:1 ¶ And God remembered Noah, and all the beasts, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged;
2 the fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;
3 and the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters decreased.
4 ¶ And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.
5 And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.
6 ¶ And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made:
7 and he sent forth a raven, and it went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.
8 And he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground;
9 but the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him to the ark; for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: and he put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her in unto him into the ark.
10 And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark;
11 and the dove came in to him at eventide; and, lo, in her mouth an olive–leaf plucked off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.
12 And he stayed yet other seven days, and sent forth the dove; and she returned not again unto him any more.
13 ¶ And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dried.
14 And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dry.
15 ¶ And God spake unto Noah, saying,
16 Go forth from the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons’ wives with thee.
17 Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee of all flesh, both birds, and cattle, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.
18 And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him:
19 every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, whatsoever moveth upon the earth, after their families, went forth out of the ark.
20 ¶ And Noah builded an altar unto Jehovah, and took of every clean beast, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt–offerings on the altar.
21 And Jehovah smelled the sweet savor; and Jehovah said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake, for that the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more everything living, as I have done.
22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” [American Standard Version; ASV].
A BIBLE DICTIONARY SAYS:
Now let’s look at one Bible Dictionary’s account:
“Deluge, The catastrophic destruction of men and animals by an overwhelming flood in the days of Noah, 2370 B.C.E. This greatest cataclysm in all human history was sent by Jehovah because wicked men had filled the earth with violence. The survival of righteous Noah and his family, eight souls in all, together with selected animals, was by means of a huge ark, or chest.—Ge 6:9–9:19; 1Pe 3:20;
Extent of the Deluge. This was no local flash flood or cloudburst. In fact, the Greek word used in the Bible to refer to the Flood, or Deluge, is ka•ta•kly•smos?, a cataclysm. (Lu 17:27, ftn) Local floods come and go in a matter of days; this one lasted over a year, the greater portion of which was required for the water to subside. How unreasonable to believe that Noah spent perhaps 50 or 60 years building a huge vessel of approximately 40,000 cu m (1,400,000 cu ft) for the survival of his family and a few animals through a mere local flood! If only a comparatively small area was affected, why the need of bringing into the ark specimens of “every living creature of every sort of flesh” in order to “preserve offspring alive on the surface of the entire earth”? (Ge 6:19; 7:3) Definitely this was a global deluge, the like of which had never occurred before nor has since. “The waters overwhelmed the earth so greatly that all the tall mountains that were under the whole heavens came to be covered. Up to 15 cubits [c. 6.5 m; 22 ft] the waters overwhelmed them and the mountains became covered.” (Ge 7:19, 20) “The end of all flesh has come before me,” Jehovah said, hence “I will wipe every existing thing that I have made off the surface of the ground.” And it was just so. “Everything in which the breath of the force of life was active in its nostrils, namely, all that were on the dry ground, died . . . only Noah and those who were with him in the ark kept on surviving.”—Ge 6:13; 7:4, 22, 23.
Timing of the Deluge. The Deluge did not come suddenly without warning. Years of time were spent building the ark, time that Noah the “preacher of righteousness” also used in warning that wicked generation. (2Pe 2:5) Finally the time limit was up “in the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month.” The “male and female of every sort of flesh” had been brought into the ark with Noah’s family, as well as a sufficient food supply for all, and “after that Jehovah shut the door.” Then “the floodgates of the heavens were opened.” (Ge 7:11, 16) There was an incessant torrential downpour for “forty days and forty nights”; “the waters continued overwhelming the earth” a hundred and fifty days. (Ge 7:4, 12, 24) Five months after the downpour began, the ark “came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.” (Ge 8:4) It was nearly two and a half months later before “the tops of the mountains appeared” (Ge 8:5), another three months before Noah removed the ark’s covering to see that the earth had practically drained (Ge 8:13), and nearly two months later when the door was opened and the survivors set foot on dry ground once again.—Ge 8:14-18.
Noah and his family entered the ark in the 600th year of Noah’s life, the 2nd month (October-November), the 17th day. (Ge 7:11) One year later (a year consisting of 360 days) was the 17th day, 2nd month, 601st year. Ten days after that would be the 27th day of the 2nd month, when they came out; a total of 370 days, or parts of 371 separate days, spent in the ark. (Ge 8:13, 14) In the log that Noah kept, it appears he used months of 30 days each, 12 of them equaling 360 days. In this way he avoided all the complicated fractions involved had he used strictly lunar months consisting of slightly more than 29 1?2 days. That such calculations were used in the account is evident from the fact that a five-month period consisted of 150 days.—Ge 7:11, 24; 8:3, 4.
The Floodwaters. It has been said that if all the moisture in the atmosphere were suddenly released as rain it would not amount to even a couple of inches if spread over the earth’s surface. So from what source was this vast deluge of Noah’s day? According to the Genesis account, God said to Noah: “Here I [Jehovah] am bringing the deluge [or, “heavenly ocean”; Heb., mab•bul?] of waters upon the earth.” (Ge 6:17, ftn) Describing what happened, the next chapter says: “All the springs of the vast watery deep were broken open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.” (Ge 7:11) So overwhelming was the Deluge that “all the tall mountains that were under the whole heavens came to be covered.”—Ge 7:19.
Where did this “heavenly ocean” come from? The Genesis account of creation tells how on the second “day” Jehovah made an expanse about the earth, and this expanse (called “Heaven”) formed a division between the waters below it, that is, the oceans, and the waters above it. (Ge 1:6-8) The waters suspended above the expanse evidently remained there from the second “day” of creation until the Flood. This is what the apostle Peter was talking about when he recounted that there “were heavens from of old and an earth standing compactly out of water and in the midst of water by the word of God.” Those “heavens” and the waters above and beneath them were the means that God’s word called into operation, and “by those means the world of that time suffered destruction when it was deluged with water.” (2Pe 3:5, 6) Various explanations have been offered as to how the water was held aloft until the Flood and as to the processes that resulted in its falling. But these are only speculative. The Bible says simply that God made the expanse with waters above it and that he brought the Deluge. His almighty power could easily accomplish it.
Since, as the Genesis account says, “all the tall mountains” were covered with water, where is all that water now? Evidently it is right here on the earth. It is believed that there was a time when the oceans were smaller and the continents were larger than they are now, as is evidenced by river channels extending far out under the oceans. It should also be noted that scientists have stated that mountains in the past were much lower than at present, and some mountains have even been pushed up from under the seas. As to the present situation, it is said that “there is ten times as much water by volume in the ocean as there is land above sea level. Dump all this land evenly into the sea, and water would cover the entire earth, one and one-half miles deep.” (National Geographic, January 1945, p. 105) So, after the floodwaters fell, but before the raising of mountains and the lowering of seabeds and before the buildup of polar ice caps, there was more than enough water to cover “all the tall mountains,” as the inspired record says.—Ge 7:19.
Effect on the Earth. With the Deluge great changes came, for example, the life span of humans dropped very rapidly. Some have suggested that prior to the Flood the waters above the expanse shielded out some of the harmful radiation and that, with the waters gone, cosmic radiation genetically harmful to man increased. However, the Bible is silent on the matter. Incidentally, any change in radiation would have altered the rate of formation of radioactive carbon-14 to such an extent as to invalidate all radiocarbon dates prior to the Flood.
With the sudden opening of the ‘springs of the watery deep’ and “the floodgates of the heavens,” untold billions of tons of water deluged the earth. (Ge 7:11) This may have caused tremendous changes in earth’s surface. The earth’s crust is relatively thin (estimated at between 30 km [20 mi] and 160 km [100 mi] thick), stretched over a rather plastic mass thousands of kilometers in diameter. Hence, under the added weight of the water, there was likely a great shifting in the crust. In time new mountains evidently were thrust upward, old mountains rose to new heights, shallow sea basins were deepened, and new shorelines were established, with the result that now about 70 percent of the surface is covered with water. This shifting in the earth’s crust may account for many geologic phenomena, such as the raising of old coastlines to new heights. It has been estimated by some that water pressures alone were equal to “2 tons per square inch,” sufficient to fossilize fauna and flora quickly.—See The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch, by D. Patten, 1966, p. 62.
What evidence proves that there truly was a global deluge?
Other possible evidence of a drastic change: Remains of mammoths and rhinoceroses have been found in different parts of the earth. Some of these were found in Siberian cliffs; others were preserved in Siberian and Alaskan ice. (PICTURE, Vol. 1, p. 328) In fact, some were found with food undigested in their stomachs or still unchewed in their teeth, indicating that they died suddenly. It is estimated, from the trade in ivory tusks, that bones of tens of thousands of such mammoths have been found. The fossil remains of many other animals, such as lions, tigers, bears, and elk, have been found in common strata, which may indicate that all of these were destroyed simultaneously. Some have pointed to such finds as definite physical proof of a rapid change in climate and sudden destruction caused by a universal flood. Others, however, favor explanations for the death of these animals that do not involve an earth-wide catastrophe. Proof that the Flood occurred is not dependent on such fossils and frozen animal remains.
Flood Legends. Such a cataclysm as the Deluge, which washed the whole world of that time out of existence, would never be forgotten by the survivors. They would talk about it to their children and their children’s children. For 500 years after the Deluge, Shem lived on to relate the event to many generations. He died only ten years before the birth of Jacob. Moses preserved the true account in Genesis. Sometime after the Flood, when God-defying people built the Tower of Babel, Jehovah confused their language and scattered them “over all the surface of the earth.” (Ge 11:9) It was only natural that these people took with them stories of the Flood and passed them on from father to son. The fact that there are not merely a few but perhaps hundreds of different stories about that great Deluge, and that such stories are found among the traditions of many primitive races the world over, is a strong proof that all these people had a common origin and that their early forefathers shared that Flood experience in common.
These folklore accounts of the Deluge agree with some major features of the Biblical account: (1) a place of refuge for a few survivors, (2) an otherwise global destruction of life by water, and (3) a seed of mankind preserved. The Egyptians, the Greeks, the Chinese, the Druids of Britain, the Polynesians, the Eskimos and Greenlanders, the Africans, the Hindus, and the American Indians—all of these have their Flood stories. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Vol. 2, p. 319) states: “Flood stories have been discovered among nearly all nations and tribes. Though most common on the Asian mainland and the islands immediately south of it and on the North American continent, they have been found on all the continents. Totals of the number of stories known run as high as about 270 . . . The universality of the flood accounts is usually taken as evidence for the universal destruction of humanity by a flood and the spread of the human race from one locale and even from one family. Though the traditions may not all refer to the same flood, apparently the vast majority do. The assertion that many of these flood stories came from contacts with missionaries will not stand up because most of them were gathered by anthropologists not interested in vindicating the Bible, and they are filled with fanciful and pagan elements evidently the result of transmission for extended periods of time in a pagan society. Moreover, some of the ancient accounts were written by people very much in opposition to the Hebrew-Christian tradition.”—Edited by G. Bromiley, 1982.
In times past, certain primitive people (in Australia, Egypt, Fiji, Society Islands, Peru, Mexico, and other places) preserved a possible remnant of these traditions about the Flood by observing in November a ‘Feast of Ancestors’ or a ‘Festival of the Dead.’ Such customs reflected a memory of the destruction caused by the Deluge. According to the book Life and Work at the Great Pyramid, the festival in Mexico was held on the 17th of November because they “had a tradition that at that time the world had been previously destroyed; and they dreaded lest a similar catastrophe would, at the end of a cycle, annihilate the human race.” (By Professor C. Piazzi Smyth, Edinburgh, 1867, Vol. II, pp. 390, 391) Notes the book The Worship of the Dead: “This festival [of the dead] is . . . held by all on or about the very day on which, according to the Mosaic account, the Deluge took place, viz., the seventeenth day of the second month—the month nearly corresponding with our November.” (By J. Garnier, London, 1904, p. 4) Interestingly, the Bible reports that the Flood began “in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month.” (Ge 7:11) That “second month” corresponds to the latter part of October and the first part of November on our calendar.
Scriptural Confirmation. Stronger evidence of the historicalness of the Deluge than the pagan traditions of primitive people is the endorsement other Bible writers gave under inspiration. The only other place where the same Hebrew word (mab•bul?, deluge) occurs outside the Genesis account is in David’s melody where he describes Jehovah as seated “upon the deluge.” (Ps 29:10) However, other writers make reference to and confirm the Genesis account, as, for example, Isaiah. (Isa 54:9) Ezekiel also endorses the historicity of Noah. (Eze 14:14, 18, 20) Peter draws heavily upon the Deluge account in his letters. (1Pe 3:20; 2Pe 2:5; 3:5, 6) Paul testifies to the great faith Noah displayed in constructing the ark for the survival of his household. (Heb 11:7) Luke lists Noah in the lineage of Messiah’s forebears.—Lu 3:36.
Even more significant is what Jesus said about the days of the Deluge, as recorded by both Luke and Matthew. Far more than just a simple endorsement of the veracity of the Deluge account, Jesus’ words show the pictorial and prophetic significance of those ancient events. In answer to the disciples’ question, “What will be the sign of your presence and of the conclusion of the system of things?” Jesus said, among other things: “For just as the days of Noah were, so the presence of the Son of man will be. For as they were in those days before the flood, eating and drinking, men marrying and women being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark; and they took no note until the flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be.” (Mt 24:3, 37-39; Lu 17:26, 27) There is, therefore, abundant evidence from the inspired Holy Scriptures themselves to support the authenticity and genuineness of the Deluge account. It does not rest on mere traditions of men, on the folklore of primitive people, or on geologic and archaeological findings. [source - retrieved from Insight on the Scriptures, Vol. I, Pages 609-610]
ONE PAGAN BOOK WITH 75% OF FLOOD STORY:
Now one expert who gave Amazon.com a new review of a translation of Gilgamesh said,
“I would draw the attention of readers to the story of the flood, as related by the Book of Gilgamesh.In particular, "for six days and nights the wind blew, torrent and tempest and flood raged together like warring hosts. When the seventh day dawned the storm from the south subsided, the sea grew calm, the flood was stilled: I looked at the face of the world and there was silence; all mankind was turned to clay. The surface of the sea stretched flat as a rooftop." This is not a river flood. This is the breach of the Black Sea basin - then inhabited - by the ocean waters of the Mediterranean Sea - as is attested by recent geological documentation. Fresh water mussels are succeeded by salt water mussels at precisely 5500 BC: also, the remains of fresh water mussels occur only at great depths where fresh water lakes previously existed. Only fishermen with boats could have survived the flood when the Bosporus was breached. The historical implications of this geological cataclism have not yet been absorbed into the thoughts of philologists in search of the origins of the Indo-European languages nor by historians of the pre-history of the Middle East. I believe this information adds to an appreciation of the significance of this early epic, insomuch as it incorporated an oral legend of an actual geological event two thousand years after the fact. Lest the survival of such remembrances in the oral tradition be doubted, the Oregon Indians preserved the oral tradition of the eruption of Mount Mazuma (Crater Lake) eight thousand years afterward.” [source - retrieved from www.amazon.com/Epic-Gilgamesh-Danny-P-Jackson/product-reviews/0865163529 on 9/9/2011]
[[COMPARISON OF GENESIS AND GILGAMESH
GENESIS GILGAMESH
Extent of flood Global Global
Cause Man's wickedness Man's sins
Intended for whom? All mankind One city & all mankind
Sender Yahweh Assembly of "gods"
Name of hero Noah Utnapishtim
Hero's character Righteous Righteous
Means of announcement Direct from God In a dream
Ordered to build boat? Yes Yes
Did hero complain? Yes Yes
Height of boat Several stories (3) Several stories (6)
Compartments inside? Many Many
Doors One One
Windows At least one At least one
Outside coating Pitch Pitch
Shape of boat Rectangular Square
Human passengers Family members only Family & few others
Other passengers All species of animals All species of animals
Means of flood Ground water & heavy rain Heavy rain
Duration of flood Long (40 days & nights plus) Short (6 days & nights)
Test to find land Release of birds Release of birds
Types of birds Raven & three doves Dove, swallow, raven
Ark landing spot Mountain -- Mt. Ararat Mountain -- Mt. Nisir
Sacrificed after flood? Yes, by Noah Yes, by Utnapishtim
Blessed after flood? Yes Yes]]
Of course, unfortunately this account in the Book of Gilgamesh was buried in with a lot of early nationalist myth or legend of the Babylonians. However it like the account in the Rig Veda written in early Sanskrit, and about 30 others are all roughly in complete agreement with the Biblical account written around 1,500 BC by Moses. This clearly shows that they were not copies, but independent accounts related to the same event. For example, Moses was brought up in Egypt, not Babylon, and would not have had access to these other accounts written in languages NOT known to him and of distant people with whom he could not possibly have had contact.
SOME MAKE FALSE CLAIMS ABOUT THE GENESIS ACCOUNT, BUT THEY AMOUNT TO NOTHING:
Some ‘know-it-alls’ tend to ‘out-of-hand dismiss’ the collective memory of people of a long gone era. And say nonsense such as the following,
“Occurrences of historic floods [deluge] should be studied by hydrologists, geologists and other EARTH SCIENTISTS, not by religious zombies!”
REALITY, The people whom either experienced the events and/or whose recent ancestors did have a much better knowledge of what transpired. In fact, there are over 270 different collective memories of the great deluge or flood found among diverse peoples on all inhabited continents clearly showing that this was a real event and NOT a ‘fairy tale’ as some who lack expertise in this area wrongly claim. Many of these agree in many ways with the specifics given in the Bible. In many cultures these accounts were passed down orally from one generation to another, but some cultures wrote them down. Moses of the Hebrews wrote them down accurately in the Bible under inspiration.
Now, to realize how dumb this individuals comments were, we need to just consider how people 5,000 years from now will view the accounts of what transpired on 9/11/2011 with respect the World Trade Center, for details read the Conspiracy Digital Book (available at jude3.proboards.com/index.cgi?act....read=615&page=1 or desivoice.yuku.com/topic/4432/Dig....e-Bane-To-Truth or
preacher.proboards.com/index.cgi?....read=473&page=1 or 533523.xobor.com/t2f4-Digital-Boo....ane-To-Truth.), and imagine its being found in the year 7,011, and other accounts of the same event surfacing from diverse people in widely different areas. Some would take it that the events of 9/11/2011 actually occurred; while others would take the accounts as ‘fairy tales,’ legends, and/or myths.
Those considering it as ‘fairy tales,’ legends, and/or myths would probably say it should be studied by aeronautic experts, geologists, archaeologist, etc., which of course would be utter nonsense as the event occurred 5,000 years before the year 7,011. This is just the same kind of nonsense as expressed by this ‘know it all’ questioning the great flood [deluge] approximately 5,000 years after its occurrence.
But, as previously stated, there are over 270 different collective memories of the great deluge or flood found among diverse peoples on all inhabited continents clearly showing that this was a real event and NOT a ‘fairy tale’ as some who lack expertise in this area. Many of these agree in many ways with the specifics given in the Bible. In many cultures these accounts were passed down orally from one generation to another, but some cultures wrote them down. Moses of the Hebrews wrote them down accurately in the Bible under inspiration. Of course, his was not the earliest account as there were already recorded accounts of this all encompassing deluge or flood in the Rig Veda, Gilgamesh, and other ancient writings. About 30 of them closely paralleling the Bible’s account by cultures that had no contact with each other in ancient times.
To wit, The very fact that over 270 diverse cultures around the world have a collective memory of this all encompassing deluge once more proves the Bible is correct in dealing with it.
Many and diverse cultures that spoke mutually incomprehensive languages and had no contact with each other had accounts and legends about the great deluge and/or flood. But some with little comprehension today try to ridicule the reality of the great deluge.
A FEW ITEMS BY OTHERS ON THE DELUGE/FLOOD:
As to the question of “Why do you consider the Bible reliable on the deluge/flood.” Simple experts in that area are of the opinion as follows:
1- The Woolly Mammoth and the Ice Age
By Wayne Jackson
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Frozen mammoth discovered in Siberia! So stated newspaper headlines in October of 1999. The body of a woolly mammoth – the entire carcass intact – had been discovered in northern Siberia. The creature subsequently was retrieved from the ice and flown to Khatanga where scientists will do research on the remains. Geneticists will attempt to extract cells from the body and clone a new mammoth, using a female elephant as a surrogate mother.
The woolly mammoth was a huge beast that roamed the earth several thousand years ago. It is well-known from numerous cave paintings. The creature stood some thirteen to fourteen feet high – about the size of a fullgrown African bull elephant.
One of the great mysteries of geologic history is why mammoths became extinct. Various theories have been proposed. Some scientists suggest that these massive animals were the first species to be exterminated by man (Boyd, p. 479). There really is no support for this view. No evidence has been discovered of ancient mammoth traps, nor have there been any traces of arrow or axe blows on the bones from the many discoveries of these creatures.
The Mammoth Mystery
The most common view is that the mammoths did not survive a sudden and severe climatic change. Let us consider some of the known facts regarding the demise of these great beasts.
The evidence for widespread mammoth deaths involves vast regions of the polar-area of the northern hemisphere. One news article states:
“All over the frozen northern parts of Siberia and Canada we find the frozen carcasses of hundreds of thousands of large mammal species. These are mainly mammoths, but also [there are] wooly rhinos and other creatures of this kind.”
In some areas the tusks of the mammoths protruded (like tombstones) so profusely from the frozen tundra that it generated trade in fossil ivory for centuries, extending all the way to China.
It is obvious that the mammoth herds died quite rapidly; they were, so to speak, quick-frozen. James D. Dana, who served as Professor of Natural History and Geology at Yale, in his renowned work, A Manual of Geology, wrote that “the encasing in ice of huge Elephants, and the perfect preservation of the flesh, shows that the cold finally became suddenly extreme, as of a single winter’s night, and knew no relenting afterwards” (Price, p. 132 – orig. emp.).
Sir Henry Howorth, a 19th century archaeologist, assembled a massive amount of material concerning the mammoth graveyards. Incidentally, Howorth was rather hostile toward Christianity. Anyway, he attributed the quick-freeze to a “change of climate” that “must have been sudden, and must also have been continental” (p. 94).
The freeze occurred so rapidly that the bodies of these huge beasts did not have time to decompose. There have been numerous cases where the flesh of mammoths was so well-preserved that the meat was still edible by bears and wolves.
In 1901 a mammoth carcass was found so well-preserved that there were food fragments, as yet unswallowed, in its mouth. Moreover, there was more than twenty pounds of vegetation still in the stomach cavity – some ofwhich was not yet decayed. The animal had died and been frozen in virtually a matter of hours (Dillow, pp. 319-20).
Another amazing revelation amidst these discoveries is the fact that the stomach content of some of these creatures indicated they had been grazing on vegetation that grows only in warm regions, yet they were quite near the north pole. Scientists were mystified.
Uniformitarianism
At this point we must take a brief excursion and discuss the concept of “uniformitarianism,” as advanced by the advocates of Darwinian evolution.
Uniformitarianism is the notion that the earth’s features, as currently observed, are the result of gradual changes, over a very long period of time (supposedly, several billion years). Thus, the slow processes we see occurring now are a commentary on the forces of nature in the past. The favorite phrase in the evolutionary vocabulary is: “The present is a key to the past.” The late George Simpson of Harvard, known by his peers as “Mr. Evolution,” opined that without the uniformitarian concept “there could be no really scientific study of any kind of history” (p. 742).
The fact of the matter is, the data cited above represent a “mammoth” obstacle to uniformitarian (evolution) theory.
An alternate concept for explaining earth’s features is called “catastrophism,” i.e., the idea that the planet’s surface has been subject to violent changes in the past – and on a worldwide scale. The most significant of these would be the global Flood of Noah’s day. Let us reflect upon several matters related to this theme.
First, it is well known that in the ancient past, the earth was characterized by a universally mild climate. There is evidence aplenty for this. For example, fossil remains of ivy; grapevines, oaks, walnuts, and magnolias in Greenland – within eleven degrees of the north pole – reveal a once-summer-like climate in that region. Coral within fossil rocks, discovered near Point Barrow, Alaska, indicate that the waters there once were much warmer than at present; corals cannot live in water cooler than about 68 degrees.
It is also widely recognized that coal is the by-product of decayed vegetal matter. There are vast coal deposits in certain areas of the earth (e.g., Antarctica), which cannot now accommodate the lush vegetation necessary to produce billions of tons of coal. This clearly demonstrates that the climate in these regions must have been drastically different in the remote past.
Alfred R. Wallace, who proposed the theory of evolution about the same time that Darwin did, once wrote:
“There is but one climate known to the ancient fossil world as revealed by the plants and animals entombed in the rocks, and the climate was a mantle of spring-like loveliness which seems to have prevailed continuously over the whole globe” (p. 277).
A more recent apostle of evolution, Dr. Robert Jastrow, similarly has observed:
“Throughout the long reign of the giant reptiles, the world had known a mild and constant climate; on every continent the eye met gentle landscapes of low relief, with shallow seas and vast areas of swampland and tropical forest. The elements of the world were in perfect balance. . . "(p. 69).
The crucial question is: What so altered the surface of the earth so as to create the radically different features observed today? An increasing number of scientists are confessing that the theory of “uniformitarianism” simply cannot account for this change. “Catastrophism” is becoming an intriguing topic of discussion again.
Note the following testimony. “Of late there has been a serious rejuvenation of catastrophism in geological thought” (Brown, p. 456). “The profound role of major storms throughout geologic history is becoming increasingly recognized” (Nummendal, p. 23). “The hurricane, the flood, or the tsunami may do more in an hour or a day than the ordinary processes of nature have achieved in a thousand years” (Ager, p. 54).
The Flood
The disappearance of the great mammoths can be explained more reasonably in terms of the Genesis Flood, than by any of the many theories espoused by evolutionists. Let us pursue this momentarily.
Many scholars believe there is biblical evidence for the concept that, before the Flood, the earth was encompassed by a canopy of water vapor that diffused sunlight and created a “greenhouse” effect, which resulted in a uniformly warm climate. Too, it is probable that the land/water ratio was more evenly distributed in the antediluvian world. This also would facilitate more moderate temperatures. Joseph Dillow has made a strong defense of a pre-flood vapor canopy in his book, The Waters Above.
When God triggered the Flood, the canopy vapor collapsed, providing much of the water that flooded the planet. This, along with other geologic phenomena (e.g., volcanic activity) resulted in climatic conditions being altered radically – worldwide (cf. Oard, p. ii; Whitcomb & Morris, pp. 292ff). Following the Flood, for the first time the biblical record mentions “cold and heat, winter and summer” (Gen. 8:22).
As weather conditions changed – abruptly and drastically – the mammoths were quick-frozen in a sudden winter of the polar regions. Remember, we mentioned earlier that some of the mammoths had warm weather vegetation in their mouths and stomachs – frozen before lunch was over!
The Ice Age
This brings us to a discussion of the Glacial Period, more popularly called the “Ice Age.” Was there an Ice Age?
Geologists maintain there were several glacial periods in the earlier history of our planet. Supposedly, these lasted for millions of years. Great sheets of ice blanketed a considerable area of North America and Europe. The cause of this circumstance is a matter of considerable confusion among evolutionary geologists. More than sixty theories have been advanced in an attempt to explain the Ice Age (Oard, p. i).
Though some religionists have denied the existence of any ice age at all, respectable creationist scholars have argued persuasively that there is ample, widespread evidence for a post-Flood glacial period. Bernard Northrup, who has studied the geologic evidence from coast to coast and abroad, has argued that an ice age followed the Flood and was itself quite catastrophic. He insists, however, that this historical period (which he believes is alluded to in the book of Job) can be fitted into the “young earth” chronology of strict creationism (pp. 93-100).
Michael Oard, a meteorologist, contends that the evidence prohibits the theory that there were multiple ice ages. He argues for one – a catastrophic icy era which came “as a consequence of the Genesis Flood” (p. iv).
Thus, the Christian need not deny that there was an historical period during which ice was extensive on our planet; he must simply recognize that the evolutionary view of such is seriously disputed.
Sources/Footnotes
* Ager, Derek V. (1981), The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record (New York: John Wiley & Sons).
Boyd, Robert & Silk, Joan (1997), How Humans Evolved (New York: Norton).
Brown, W. Bahngress (1974), Geology 2; quoted in Morris, Henry (1997) That Their Words May be Used Against Them, San Diego: Institute of Creation Research.
Dillow, Joseph C. (1981), The Waters About (Chicago: Moody Press).
Howorth, H.H. (1887), The Mammoth and the Flood (London: Sampson, et al).
Jastrow, Robert (1977), _Until The Sun Dies (New York: Warner Books).
Northrup, Bernard (1986), “There Really Was An Ice Age,” Proceedings of the First International Conference on Creationism (Pitrsburg: Creation Science Fellowship).
Nummendal, Dag (1974), Geotimes 27, No. 2.
Oard, Michael J. (1987), “The Ice Age And The Genesis Flood,” Impact (June).
Price, G.M. (1913), The Fundamentals of Geology (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press).
Simpson, George G., Pittendrigh, C.S., and Tiffany L.H. (1957), Life: An Introduction to Biology (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Co.).
Wallace, Alfred R. (1886), The Geological Distribution of Animals (New York: Harper Bros.), Vol. 1.
Whitcomb, John, and Morris, Henry (1961), The Genesis Flood (Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed [source - retrieved from www.christiancourier.com/articles/848-the-woolly-mammoth-and-the-ice-age on 9/30/2011]
2 - 19 Fossilization
Study By: Lance Ponder
“He will be buried with a donkey's burial, Dragged off and thrown out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.” Jer 22:19 (NASB)
There are six main fossilization processes. These processes are observable and repeatable under laboratory conditions, if not in nature. Most require water or rapid burial in sediment or both. Almost all fossils present on earth today can easily be explained by a planetary flood but cannot be satisfactorily explained by supposing many small local catastrophes over millions of years.
Freezing is extremely rare in nature today, although numerous animals have been found frozen into fossils. They are preserved in part or whole, even with hair and flesh intact. Most have been found along the northern parts of Siberia and Alaska and include thousands of wooly mammoths, bear, rhinoceros, and other mammals. A few have even been found with food still in their mouths and undigested food in their stomachs. This indicates the animals were frozen suddenly and conditions were such that scavengers were unable to consume them. If an animal is trapped under an avalanche, for example, it would be protected from scavengers, but it would probably live long enough to swallow what was in its mouth. In many cases the places where they are found are on frozen planes. This makes burial by a normal avalanche extremely unlikely.
Most scientists agree that the polar regions were once much warmer than they are today. Frozen tropical animals makes it clear that the temperature change was extreme and sudden. Either the atmosphere changed or the landmass suddenly moved to a cold place, or both. Whichever is the case, the event impacted a vast region seemingly simultaneously. This is suggested by the fact that there is no indication that once frozen these animals were ever thawed and refrozen. If that happened they would have rotted or been picked clean by scavengers. Many of these animals have been found with almost no deterioration at all.
Extremely rapid freezing of a tropical area seems highly unlikely in the uniformitarian model if for no other reason than large scale catastrophes of any kind are denied. Some people theorize that atmospheric debris from an asteroid wiped out most of the dinosaurs and caused an ice age. There are several difficulties with this theory. With regard to frozen remains of tropical animals in polar regions, It seems extremely unlikely that even large amounts of dirt in the atmosphere would have cause the surface to cool fast enough in such a vast area to account for the abundance of frozen remains.
Leaving aside human theories, the biblical account provides an historical record that offers much more plausible explanations for the evidence at hand. One scientific theory based on the biblical account is that the animals were alive before the flood and were frozen early in the flood. Water vapor in the atmosphere may have caused a more uniform temperature around the planet. As the atmosphere suddenly released great amounts of water, polar regions experienced rapid freezing. Northern Alaska and Siberia could have experienced a temperature drop of 100°F or more in a matter of hours. Another variation on this theory is that when fountains of the deep broken open, tectonic plates moved whole continents from tropical to polar regions in a few days or possibly hours.
Fossilized hard animal parts (bones and shells) are most common type of fossil. Usually when an animal dies its soft parts rot or get consumed by scavengers and the bones disintegrate over time. In some cases bones get buried in sediment. Bones get preserved as fossils when the sediment hardens into rock before the bones have a chance to disintegrate. Most limestone and sandstone fossils are of this type. The most likely cause of this type of fossilization is a flood.
The numbers and densities of such deposits around the world testify to massive sudden flooding. The uniformitarian model would require hundreds if not thousands of major localized floods trapping thousands of organisms, large and small. The flood of Noah, however, accounts for all such fossils.
Castings are similar to fossilized hard parts except that none of the original organism remains. Sediments cover the animal and harden. The animal inside dissolves. Water seeping into the cavity carries minerals in and organic waste out. The casting is eventually filled and formed. The result is a replica in part or whole of the original animal. The cast must be formed quickly with some sort of cementing process. Burial by flood debris is much more common than volcanic burial, yet bodies found in Pompeii are an excellent example of natural castings. The volcanic rock covered and quickly cooled to form casts around the bodies. The bodies themselves eventually rotted and rainwater filled in the casting with sediment to form fossil castings.
The most beautiful and exotic fossils are those of soft animals. Particularly unique are jellyfish fossils, although any fossil of soft marine life is amazing. Fish are notoriously carnivorous. Dead soft marine parts almost never go uneaten by sea scavengers. Jellyfish are entirely soft, made mostly of water. Short of a violent flood of biblical proportions to carry and churn vast amounts of sediment there is no logical explanation for sudden burial of ocean creatures like jellyfish.
Petrifaction is another fossilization process similar to castings. The filling material is typically carried into the casting by underground water carrying minerals. The petrified forests of Yellowstone Park and in Arizona are well known examples of this type of fossilization. As with castings, petrifaction requires very rapid burial and cementing of the mold around the original plant or animal life followed by a period of minerals being carried by water into the void left by the decay of the original organism. The vast petrified forests discovered in these places require a very rapid and large-scale hydraulic (flood) event to bury the quantity of life found there.
Fossilized tracks are the next kind of fossil. Tracks of all sorts of animal life, including humans, become fossils when the soft surface is cemented by powerful hydraulic force then gets covered by softer sediment. The tracks harden and can later be uncovered when the softer sediment is removed. Tracks of all sorts of creatures have been found in fossil beds around the world.
Fossils found in coal are the result of a different fossilization process called carbonization. In this process hydrogen and oxygen largely disappear leaving mostly carbon. Coal has been found in nearly every region of Earth including Antarctica. Coal is believed to be the end product of metamorphism of tremendous quantities of plant remains. Coal seams vary from a few inches to several feet of depth and may run in alternating layers with other sedimentary rock such as limestone. The density of the coal means either plants morphed into coal over a vast period or there was a vast amount of vegetation buried together suddenly. Alternating layers are explained in the uniformitarian model by saying an area alternated between forest and arid land over vast periods. The catastrophic Biblical model explains the layers as the result of shifting currents pushing and pressing accumulations of flood debris into layers buried rapidly. Although we have various peat bogs and the La Brea tar pits with us today, none of these demonstrate examples of coal formation or fossilization by carbonization today.
Except for freezing, all of the other fossilization methods require burial by flood or volcanic eruption. Castings, petrifaction and tracks specifically require water as part of the process. Carbonization requires water to be drawn out of organic material under great pressure. Uniformitarianism offers repeating cycles of local flooding as the explanation. Repeated limited locals floods fail to explain the density and distribution of fossils, sedimentary rock deposits, coal seams, and the worlds vast oil and natural gas reservoirs. Only the biblical flood offers a succinct single explanation for all of the fossil remains, limestone, coal and oil with its vast and diverse distribution.
Most fossilization methods require rapid burial. Cementing action takes very little time. The existence of fossils does not, in and of itself, require vast time. Only the theory of Evolution combined with geological Uniformitarianism requires vast time. [source - retrieved from bible.org/seriespage/19-fossilization on 9/30/2011]
3 - The extinction of the woolly mammoth: was it a quick freeze?
by Michael Oard
Summary
Apart from formerly glaciated areas, woolly mammoth remains are abundant in the surficial sediments of the mid and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, including western Europe, northern and eastern Asia, Alaska and the Yukon. There are probably millions of mammoths buried in the permafrost of Siberia alone. The mammoths are found with a wide variety of other mammals, large and small, many of which were grazers. They lived in a grassland environment with a long growing season, mild winters, very little permafrost, and a wide diversity of plants—quite different from the climate in the region today.
The mammoths and other animals colonised the region after the Flood during the ice age. The region’s climate during the ice age was ideal for rapid population growth and, in the 600 or so years before their demise, the population had grown to many millions of animals. They were buried in the dust storms that deposited the loess blankets found in those regions today. Some were entombed in a standing position. The good state of preservation of the stomach contents does not call for super-rapid freezing of the carcasses. Rather than food digestion, the mammoth stomach acts as a food storage pouch. The mammoths became extinct when, at the end of the ice age, the climate in the region became more continental, with colder winters, warmer summers, and drier conditions.
Frozen carcasses and many thousands of tons of bones and tusks of woolly mammoths are buried in Siberia and Alaska. In March 2000, the Discovery Channel produced a special on the excavation of a carcass in north central Siberia, called the Jarkov mammoth. This mammoth was cut out of the permafrost and transported by helicopter into cold storage for future analysis and possible cloning.1
Mammoth remains have puzzled scientists and laymen for hundreds of years. Many explanations have been offered. One of the most popular hypotheses is that one eventful day, the hairy elephants were peacefully grazing on grass and buttercups when suddenly, tragedy struck, and millions of them froze instantly.
This article examines the life and death of the woolly mammoth in Siberia, Alaska, and the Yukon Territory of Canada. These areas, together with the surrounding shallow ocean (Bering Strait), are called Beringia. There are still unknowns associated with the woolly mammoth and its environment in Beringia. Some information is conflicting. However, the data is pointing to a unique environment and extinction of the woolly mammoths in Beringia.
What is a woolly mammoth?
A woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) is one of several types of mammoths in the genus Mammuthus within the order Proboscidea. The woolly mammoth is essentially a hairy elephant with a large shoulder hump, a sloping back, small ears, tiny tail, unique teeth, a small trunk with a distinctive tip and two finger-like projections, huge spirally curved tusks up to 3.5 meters long, and spiral locks of dark hair covering a silky underfur.2
Mammoths are classified mainly on variables such as molar hypsodonty (height of the crown), number of lamellae (ridges on crown), and enamel thickness. History shows there has been much taxonomic splitting of mammoths, as well as other members of Proboscidea. It is likely that they are all descended from a single created kind.2 In general, there seem to be two main varieties of mammoths on both Eurasia and North America. The woolly mammoth is the smaller variety that generally inhabited the north. The second, more southern variety, from both Eurasia and North America can be lumped together for simplification and referred to as the Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi).
Figure 2. Distribution of woolly mammoth remains, and the mammoth steppe. Glaciated areas are shown speckled. Mammoth steppe is shown hatched. The area referred to as Beringia is shown separately (after Guthrie143). Note that the extent of the northern and eastern boundaries of the Scandinavian ice sheet is controversial.
Mammoth distribution
Mammoths are commonly found in surficial sediments from western Europe eastward through northern and eastern Asia, Alaska and the Yukon (Figure 2).3,4 Mammoth remains are also found on some of the islands in the Bering Sea5,6 and are dredged from the shallow continental shelves surrounding Beringia.7,8 Enormous numbers of ice age mammals, most commonly mammoths, are dredged up from the unconsolidated sediments of the North Sea by trawlers.9 Woolly mammoths are found in abundance south of the North American ice sheet. They are rare in formerly glaciated areas. Mammoth and mastodon teeth have been dredged from 40 sites along the continental shelf off the eastern US in water up to 120 m deep.10
In Siberia, the woolly mammoth inhabited the whole area from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Their east-west distribution is generally uniform, except that they are especially abundant in northeast Siberia.11 Their numbers increase farther north.12,13 Mammoth remains are amazingly abundant on the Lyakhov Islands14 and the other islands of the New Siberian Islands, 230 km north of the Arctic coast.12,15 Frozen mammoth carcasses are usually found eroding out of river banks and along the shore of the Arctic Ocean.
Mammoth fauna
Woolly mammoths are not the only fossil mammals found in the permafrost of Beringia. There are a wide range of other mammals, large and small, that accompany the mammoths. These include the woolly rhinoceros, wolf, fox, lion, brown bear, camel, deer, ground sloth, pika, wolverine, ferret, ground squirrel, moose, reindeer, yak, musk ox, giant beaver, lemming, porcupine, coyote, skunk, mastodon, antelope, sheep, voles, hare and rabbit, plus many species of birds, rodents, horses, and bisons.4,16–19 Frozen carcasses of these animals, especially the woolly rhinoceros, are also found. Generally, the same animals are found together throughout much of the mid and high latitudes of the Northern HemiÂsphere.3,20
How many mammoths are buried in Siberia?
There has been much controversy over how many woolly mammoths are frozen in the permafrost of Siberia. A few scientists attempt to downplay the number,21 but practically all observers describe the number in superlatives.
The top expert on woolly mammoths in Siberia, Nikolai Vereshchagin, has spent nearly a half century of research on the mammoth fauna. He states that there are many hundreds of thousands of large mammals buried in Siberia22 and also many millions of bones.23 One estimate he made for one region of Siberia would suggest five million mammoths buried.24 Is he exaggerating? It would be conservative, therefore, to conclude that several million mammoths are buried in Beringia.
Perplexing mammoth data
There are many perplexing aspects to the Siberian mammoth finds, including the existence of frozen carcasses and the good preservation of their stomach contents. In addition, a number of the carcasses and skeletons have been unearthed in a general standing position, as if the animal sank in a bog.25–27 The Selerikhan horse was entombed in a general standing position.28 The new Jarkov mammoth was dug up in a standing position.
It is also relevant that an analysis of several features of the carcasses shows that three woolly mammoths and two woolly rhinoceroses suffocated, including the Beresovka (or Beryosovka) mammoth.29–32 The Beresovka mammoth also had a broken pelvis, ribs, and right foreleg.13,27
For carcasses to be frozen and the bones and tusks well preserved, quick burial is necessary. But how could all these woolly mammoths have been forced into the rock hard permafrost, which starts about half a meter deep, below the summer melt zone?
Beringian paleoenvironmental deductions
The animals themselves tell us much about the paleoenvironment —a controversial subject.33 The diversity of animals was so great that there must have been a highly diverse vegetation.34 The only similar diversity of mammals is on the Serengeti of East Africa.34,35 Practically all the large mammals were grazers that ate a wide variety of herbaceous vegetation, mainly grasses. Based on the large numbers of healthy individuals, Beringia, as well as Europe and western Russia, must have been mostly one huge grassland during the ice age, called the mammoth steppe or steppe tundra (Figure 2).3,34,36,37
Figure 3. Ability of animals to walk through deep snow or to stay on top of crusted snow depends on foot loading and chest height (after Guthrie).144 The sheep and wolf could not have tolerated deep snow or boggy substrate.
To maintain a large variety of herbaceous vegetation on the mammoth steppe would have required a long growing season with warm soil and rapid spring growth.38 This contrasts strongly to the current environment where green vegetation does not appear in northern Siberia until mid June to early July.39 Ninety percent of the biomass of grass is in the roots below the surface, and the grass cannot grow until the snow melts and the soil warms up. Therefore, winters must have been milder with light snowfall. The growth pattern of the mammals reinforces the deduction of a longer growing season.34 The shaggy ruffs, heavy horns, long tusks, and enormous antlers are what wildlife managers would recognise as indicators of high-quality habitat with light competition and a long growing season.40 Open range with light snowfall during winter is also supported by the existence of several animals that are intolerant of deep snow, such as the saiga antelope, bighorn sheep, Dall sheep, and wolf (Figure 3).41
See Part 2
INTRODUCTION:
The great deluge/flood of Noah’s day is recorded in the Book of Genesis, the first book in the Bible. The account of the flood is as follows in Genesis Chapter 7 and 8:
“And Jehovah said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.
2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee seven and seven, the male and his female; and of the beasts that are not clean two, the male and his female:
3 of the birds also of the heavens, seven and seven, male and female, to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.
4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living thing that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the ground.
5 ¶ And Noah did according unto all that Jehovah commanded him.
6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.
8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creepeth upon the ground,
9 there went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, male and female, as God commanded Noah.
10 And it came to pass after the seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
11 ¶ In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
13 ¶ In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark;
14 they, and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, every bird of every sort.
15 And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh wherein is the breath of life.
16 And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God commanded him: and Jehovah shut him in.
17 ¶ And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth.
18 And the waters prevailed, and increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.
19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered.
20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
21 ¶ And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both birds, and cattle, and beasts, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
22 all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, of all that was on the dry land, died.
23 And every living thing was destroyed that was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and creeping things, and birds of the heavens; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only was left, and they that were with him in the ark.
24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.
8:1 ¶ And God remembered Noah, and all the beasts, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged;
2 the fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;
3 and the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters decreased.
4 ¶ And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.
5 And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.
6 ¶ And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made:
7 and he sent forth a raven, and it went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.
8 And he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground;
9 but the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him to the ark; for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: and he put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her in unto him into the ark.
10 And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark;
11 and the dove came in to him at eventide; and, lo, in her mouth an olive–leaf plucked off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.
12 And he stayed yet other seven days, and sent forth the dove; and she returned not again unto him any more.
13 ¶ And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dried.
14 And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dry.
15 ¶ And God spake unto Noah, saying,
16 Go forth from the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons’ wives with thee.
17 Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee of all flesh, both birds, and cattle, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.
18 And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him:
19 every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, whatsoever moveth upon the earth, after their families, went forth out of the ark.
20 ¶ And Noah builded an altar unto Jehovah, and took of every clean beast, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt–offerings on the altar.
21 And Jehovah smelled the sweet savor; and Jehovah said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake, for that the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more everything living, as I have done.
22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” [American Standard Version; ASV].
A BIBLE DICTIONARY SAYS:
Now let’s look at one Bible Dictionary’s account:
“Deluge, The catastrophic destruction of men and animals by an overwhelming flood in the days of Noah, 2370 B.C.E. This greatest cataclysm in all human history was sent by Jehovah because wicked men had filled the earth with violence. The survival of righteous Noah and his family, eight souls in all, together with selected animals, was by means of a huge ark, or chest.—Ge 6:9–9:19; 1Pe 3:20;
Extent of the Deluge. This was no local flash flood or cloudburst. In fact, the Greek word used in the Bible to refer to the Flood, or Deluge, is ka•ta•kly•smos?, a cataclysm. (Lu 17:27, ftn) Local floods come and go in a matter of days; this one lasted over a year, the greater portion of which was required for the water to subside. How unreasonable to believe that Noah spent perhaps 50 or 60 years building a huge vessel of approximately 40,000 cu m (1,400,000 cu ft) for the survival of his family and a few animals through a mere local flood! If only a comparatively small area was affected, why the need of bringing into the ark specimens of “every living creature of every sort of flesh” in order to “preserve offspring alive on the surface of the entire earth”? (Ge 6:19; 7:3) Definitely this was a global deluge, the like of which had never occurred before nor has since. “The waters overwhelmed the earth so greatly that all the tall mountains that were under the whole heavens came to be covered. Up to 15 cubits [c. 6.5 m; 22 ft] the waters overwhelmed them and the mountains became covered.” (Ge 7:19, 20) “The end of all flesh has come before me,” Jehovah said, hence “I will wipe every existing thing that I have made off the surface of the ground.” And it was just so. “Everything in which the breath of the force of life was active in its nostrils, namely, all that were on the dry ground, died . . . only Noah and those who were with him in the ark kept on surviving.”—Ge 6:13; 7:4, 22, 23.
Timing of the Deluge. The Deluge did not come suddenly without warning. Years of time were spent building the ark, time that Noah the “preacher of righteousness” also used in warning that wicked generation. (2Pe 2:5) Finally the time limit was up “in the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month.” The “male and female of every sort of flesh” had been brought into the ark with Noah’s family, as well as a sufficient food supply for all, and “after that Jehovah shut the door.” Then “the floodgates of the heavens were opened.” (Ge 7:11, 16) There was an incessant torrential downpour for “forty days and forty nights”; “the waters continued overwhelming the earth” a hundred and fifty days. (Ge 7:4, 12, 24) Five months after the downpour began, the ark “came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.” (Ge 8:4) It was nearly two and a half months later before “the tops of the mountains appeared” (Ge 8:5), another three months before Noah removed the ark’s covering to see that the earth had practically drained (Ge 8:13), and nearly two months later when the door was opened and the survivors set foot on dry ground once again.—Ge 8:14-18.
Noah and his family entered the ark in the 600th year of Noah’s life, the 2nd month (October-November), the 17th day. (Ge 7:11) One year later (a year consisting of 360 days) was the 17th day, 2nd month, 601st year. Ten days after that would be the 27th day of the 2nd month, when they came out; a total of 370 days, or parts of 371 separate days, spent in the ark. (Ge 8:13, 14) In the log that Noah kept, it appears he used months of 30 days each, 12 of them equaling 360 days. In this way he avoided all the complicated fractions involved had he used strictly lunar months consisting of slightly more than 29 1?2 days. That such calculations were used in the account is evident from the fact that a five-month period consisted of 150 days.—Ge 7:11, 24; 8:3, 4.
The Floodwaters. It has been said that if all the moisture in the atmosphere were suddenly released as rain it would not amount to even a couple of inches if spread over the earth’s surface. So from what source was this vast deluge of Noah’s day? According to the Genesis account, God said to Noah: “Here I [Jehovah] am bringing the deluge [or, “heavenly ocean”; Heb., mab•bul?] of waters upon the earth.” (Ge 6:17, ftn) Describing what happened, the next chapter says: “All the springs of the vast watery deep were broken open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.” (Ge 7:11) So overwhelming was the Deluge that “all the tall mountains that were under the whole heavens came to be covered.”—Ge 7:19.
Where did this “heavenly ocean” come from? The Genesis account of creation tells how on the second “day” Jehovah made an expanse about the earth, and this expanse (called “Heaven”) formed a division between the waters below it, that is, the oceans, and the waters above it. (Ge 1:6-8) The waters suspended above the expanse evidently remained there from the second “day” of creation until the Flood. This is what the apostle Peter was talking about when he recounted that there “were heavens from of old and an earth standing compactly out of water and in the midst of water by the word of God.” Those “heavens” and the waters above and beneath them were the means that God’s word called into operation, and “by those means the world of that time suffered destruction when it was deluged with water.” (2Pe 3:5, 6) Various explanations have been offered as to how the water was held aloft until the Flood and as to the processes that resulted in its falling. But these are only speculative. The Bible says simply that God made the expanse with waters above it and that he brought the Deluge. His almighty power could easily accomplish it.
Since, as the Genesis account says, “all the tall mountains” were covered with water, where is all that water now? Evidently it is right here on the earth. It is believed that there was a time when the oceans were smaller and the continents were larger than they are now, as is evidenced by river channels extending far out under the oceans. It should also be noted that scientists have stated that mountains in the past were much lower than at present, and some mountains have even been pushed up from under the seas. As to the present situation, it is said that “there is ten times as much water by volume in the ocean as there is land above sea level. Dump all this land evenly into the sea, and water would cover the entire earth, one and one-half miles deep.” (National Geographic, January 1945, p. 105) So, after the floodwaters fell, but before the raising of mountains and the lowering of seabeds and before the buildup of polar ice caps, there was more than enough water to cover “all the tall mountains,” as the inspired record says.—Ge 7:19.
Effect on the Earth. With the Deluge great changes came, for example, the life span of humans dropped very rapidly. Some have suggested that prior to the Flood the waters above the expanse shielded out some of the harmful radiation and that, with the waters gone, cosmic radiation genetically harmful to man increased. However, the Bible is silent on the matter. Incidentally, any change in radiation would have altered the rate of formation of radioactive carbon-14 to such an extent as to invalidate all radiocarbon dates prior to the Flood.
With the sudden opening of the ‘springs of the watery deep’ and “the floodgates of the heavens,” untold billions of tons of water deluged the earth. (Ge 7:11) This may have caused tremendous changes in earth’s surface. The earth’s crust is relatively thin (estimated at between 30 km [20 mi] and 160 km [100 mi] thick), stretched over a rather plastic mass thousands of kilometers in diameter. Hence, under the added weight of the water, there was likely a great shifting in the crust. In time new mountains evidently were thrust upward, old mountains rose to new heights, shallow sea basins were deepened, and new shorelines were established, with the result that now about 70 percent of the surface is covered with water. This shifting in the earth’s crust may account for many geologic phenomena, such as the raising of old coastlines to new heights. It has been estimated by some that water pressures alone were equal to “2 tons per square inch,” sufficient to fossilize fauna and flora quickly.—See The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch, by D. Patten, 1966, p. 62.
What evidence proves that there truly was a global deluge?
Other possible evidence of a drastic change: Remains of mammoths and rhinoceroses have been found in different parts of the earth. Some of these were found in Siberian cliffs; others were preserved in Siberian and Alaskan ice. (PICTURE, Vol. 1, p. 328) In fact, some were found with food undigested in their stomachs or still unchewed in their teeth, indicating that they died suddenly. It is estimated, from the trade in ivory tusks, that bones of tens of thousands of such mammoths have been found. The fossil remains of many other animals, such as lions, tigers, bears, and elk, have been found in common strata, which may indicate that all of these were destroyed simultaneously. Some have pointed to such finds as definite physical proof of a rapid change in climate and sudden destruction caused by a universal flood. Others, however, favor explanations for the death of these animals that do not involve an earth-wide catastrophe. Proof that the Flood occurred is not dependent on such fossils and frozen animal remains.
Flood Legends. Such a cataclysm as the Deluge, which washed the whole world of that time out of existence, would never be forgotten by the survivors. They would talk about it to their children and their children’s children. For 500 years after the Deluge, Shem lived on to relate the event to many generations. He died only ten years before the birth of Jacob. Moses preserved the true account in Genesis. Sometime after the Flood, when God-defying people built the Tower of Babel, Jehovah confused their language and scattered them “over all the surface of the earth.” (Ge 11:9) It was only natural that these people took with them stories of the Flood and passed them on from father to son. The fact that there are not merely a few but perhaps hundreds of different stories about that great Deluge, and that such stories are found among the traditions of many primitive races the world over, is a strong proof that all these people had a common origin and that their early forefathers shared that Flood experience in common.
These folklore accounts of the Deluge agree with some major features of the Biblical account: (1) a place of refuge for a few survivors, (2) an otherwise global destruction of life by water, and (3) a seed of mankind preserved. The Egyptians, the Greeks, the Chinese, the Druids of Britain, the Polynesians, the Eskimos and Greenlanders, the Africans, the Hindus, and the American Indians—all of these have their Flood stories. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Vol. 2, p. 319) states: “Flood stories have been discovered among nearly all nations and tribes. Though most common on the Asian mainland and the islands immediately south of it and on the North American continent, they have been found on all the continents. Totals of the number of stories known run as high as about 270 . . . The universality of the flood accounts is usually taken as evidence for the universal destruction of humanity by a flood and the spread of the human race from one locale and even from one family. Though the traditions may not all refer to the same flood, apparently the vast majority do. The assertion that many of these flood stories came from contacts with missionaries will not stand up because most of them were gathered by anthropologists not interested in vindicating the Bible, and they are filled with fanciful and pagan elements evidently the result of transmission for extended periods of time in a pagan society. Moreover, some of the ancient accounts were written by people very much in opposition to the Hebrew-Christian tradition.”—Edited by G. Bromiley, 1982.
In times past, certain primitive people (in Australia, Egypt, Fiji, Society Islands, Peru, Mexico, and other places) preserved a possible remnant of these traditions about the Flood by observing in November a ‘Feast of Ancestors’ or a ‘Festival of the Dead.’ Such customs reflected a memory of the destruction caused by the Deluge. According to the book Life and Work at the Great Pyramid, the festival in Mexico was held on the 17th of November because they “had a tradition that at that time the world had been previously destroyed; and they dreaded lest a similar catastrophe would, at the end of a cycle, annihilate the human race.” (By Professor C. Piazzi Smyth, Edinburgh, 1867, Vol. II, pp. 390, 391) Notes the book The Worship of the Dead: “This festival [of the dead] is . . . held by all on or about the very day on which, according to the Mosaic account, the Deluge took place, viz., the seventeenth day of the second month—the month nearly corresponding with our November.” (By J. Garnier, London, 1904, p. 4) Interestingly, the Bible reports that the Flood began “in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month.” (Ge 7:11) That “second month” corresponds to the latter part of October and the first part of November on our calendar.
Scriptural Confirmation. Stronger evidence of the historicalness of the Deluge than the pagan traditions of primitive people is the endorsement other Bible writers gave under inspiration. The only other place where the same Hebrew word (mab•bul?, deluge) occurs outside the Genesis account is in David’s melody where he describes Jehovah as seated “upon the deluge.” (Ps 29:10) However, other writers make reference to and confirm the Genesis account, as, for example, Isaiah. (Isa 54:9) Ezekiel also endorses the historicity of Noah. (Eze 14:14, 18, 20) Peter draws heavily upon the Deluge account in his letters. (1Pe 3:20; 2Pe 2:5; 3:5, 6) Paul testifies to the great faith Noah displayed in constructing the ark for the survival of his household. (Heb 11:7) Luke lists Noah in the lineage of Messiah’s forebears.—Lu 3:36.
Even more significant is what Jesus said about the days of the Deluge, as recorded by both Luke and Matthew. Far more than just a simple endorsement of the veracity of the Deluge account, Jesus’ words show the pictorial and prophetic significance of those ancient events. In answer to the disciples’ question, “What will be the sign of your presence and of the conclusion of the system of things?” Jesus said, among other things: “For just as the days of Noah were, so the presence of the Son of man will be. For as they were in those days before the flood, eating and drinking, men marrying and women being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark; and they took no note until the flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be.” (Mt 24:3, 37-39; Lu 17:26, 27) There is, therefore, abundant evidence from the inspired Holy Scriptures themselves to support the authenticity and genuineness of the Deluge account. It does not rest on mere traditions of men, on the folklore of primitive people, or on geologic and archaeological findings. [source - retrieved from Insight on the Scriptures, Vol. I, Pages 609-610]
ONE PAGAN BOOK WITH 75% OF FLOOD STORY:
Now one expert who gave Amazon.com a new review of a translation of Gilgamesh said,
“I would draw the attention of readers to the story of the flood, as related by the Book of Gilgamesh.In particular, "for six days and nights the wind blew, torrent and tempest and flood raged together like warring hosts. When the seventh day dawned the storm from the south subsided, the sea grew calm, the flood was stilled: I looked at the face of the world and there was silence; all mankind was turned to clay. The surface of the sea stretched flat as a rooftop." This is not a river flood. This is the breach of the Black Sea basin - then inhabited - by the ocean waters of the Mediterranean Sea - as is attested by recent geological documentation. Fresh water mussels are succeeded by salt water mussels at precisely 5500 BC: also, the remains of fresh water mussels occur only at great depths where fresh water lakes previously existed. Only fishermen with boats could have survived the flood when the Bosporus was breached. The historical implications of this geological cataclism have not yet been absorbed into the thoughts of philologists in search of the origins of the Indo-European languages nor by historians of the pre-history of the Middle East. I believe this information adds to an appreciation of the significance of this early epic, insomuch as it incorporated an oral legend of an actual geological event two thousand years after the fact. Lest the survival of such remembrances in the oral tradition be doubted, the Oregon Indians preserved the oral tradition of the eruption of Mount Mazuma (Crater Lake) eight thousand years afterward.” [source - retrieved from www.amazon.com/Epic-Gilgamesh-Danny-P-Jackson/product-reviews/0865163529 on 9/9/2011]
[[COMPARISON OF GENESIS AND GILGAMESH
GENESIS GILGAMESH
Extent of flood Global Global
Cause Man's wickedness Man's sins
Intended for whom? All mankind One city & all mankind
Sender Yahweh Assembly of "gods"
Name of hero Noah Utnapishtim
Hero's character Righteous Righteous
Means of announcement Direct from God In a dream
Ordered to build boat? Yes Yes
Did hero complain? Yes Yes
Height of boat Several stories (3) Several stories (6)
Compartments inside? Many Many
Doors One One
Windows At least one At least one
Outside coating Pitch Pitch
Shape of boat Rectangular Square
Human passengers Family members only Family & few others
Other passengers All species of animals All species of animals
Means of flood Ground water & heavy rain Heavy rain
Duration of flood Long (40 days & nights plus) Short (6 days & nights)
Test to find land Release of birds Release of birds
Types of birds Raven & three doves Dove, swallow, raven
Ark landing spot Mountain -- Mt. Ararat Mountain -- Mt. Nisir
Sacrificed after flood? Yes, by Noah Yes, by Utnapishtim
Blessed after flood? Yes Yes]]
Of course, unfortunately this account in the Book of Gilgamesh was buried in with a lot of early nationalist myth or legend of the Babylonians. However it like the account in the Rig Veda written in early Sanskrit, and about 30 others are all roughly in complete agreement with the Biblical account written around 1,500 BC by Moses. This clearly shows that they were not copies, but independent accounts related to the same event. For example, Moses was brought up in Egypt, not Babylon, and would not have had access to these other accounts written in languages NOT known to him and of distant people with whom he could not possibly have had contact.
SOME MAKE FALSE CLAIMS ABOUT THE GENESIS ACCOUNT, BUT THEY AMOUNT TO NOTHING:
Some ‘know-it-alls’ tend to ‘out-of-hand dismiss’ the collective memory of people of a long gone era. And say nonsense such as the following,
“Occurrences of historic floods [deluge] should be studied by hydrologists, geologists and other EARTH SCIENTISTS, not by religious zombies!”
REALITY, The people whom either experienced the events and/or whose recent ancestors did have a much better knowledge of what transpired. In fact, there are over 270 different collective memories of the great deluge or flood found among diverse peoples on all inhabited continents clearly showing that this was a real event and NOT a ‘fairy tale’ as some who lack expertise in this area wrongly claim. Many of these agree in many ways with the specifics given in the Bible. In many cultures these accounts were passed down orally from one generation to another, but some cultures wrote them down. Moses of the Hebrews wrote them down accurately in the Bible under inspiration.
Now, to realize how dumb this individuals comments were, we need to just consider how people 5,000 years from now will view the accounts of what transpired on 9/11/2011 with respect the World Trade Center, for details read the Conspiracy Digital Book (available at jude3.proboards.com/index.cgi?act....read=615&page=1 or desivoice.yuku.com/topic/4432/Dig....e-Bane-To-Truth or
preacher.proboards.com/index.cgi?....read=473&page=1 or 533523.xobor.com/t2f4-Digital-Boo....ane-To-Truth.), and imagine its being found in the year 7,011, and other accounts of the same event surfacing from diverse people in widely different areas. Some would take it that the events of 9/11/2011 actually occurred; while others would take the accounts as ‘fairy tales,’ legends, and/or myths.
Those considering it as ‘fairy tales,’ legends, and/or myths would probably say it should be studied by aeronautic experts, geologists, archaeologist, etc., which of course would be utter nonsense as the event occurred 5,000 years before the year 7,011. This is just the same kind of nonsense as expressed by this ‘know it all’ questioning the great flood [deluge] approximately 5,000 years after its occurrence.
But, as previously stated, there are over 270 different collective memories of the great deluge or flood found among diverse peoples on all inhabited continents clearly showing that this was a real event and NOT a ‘fairy tale’ as some who lack expertise in this area. Many of these agree in many ways with the specifics given in the Bible. In many cultures these accounts were passed down orally from one generation to another, but some cultures wrote them down. Moses of the Hebrews wrote them down accurately in the Bible under inspiration. Of course, his was not the earliest account as there were already recorded accounts of this all encompassing deluge or flood in the Rig Veda, Gilgamesh, and other ancient writings. About 30 of them closely paralleling the Bible’s account by cultures that had no contact with each other in ancient times.
To wit, The very fact that over 270 diverse cultures around the world have a collective memory of this all encompassing deluge once more proves the Bible is correct in dealing with it.
Many and diverse cultures that spoke mutually incomprehensive languages and had no contact with each other had accounts and legends about the great deluge and/or flood. But some with little comprehension today try to ridicule the reality of the great deluge.
A FEW ITEMS BY OTHERS ON THE DELUGE/FLOOD:
As to the question of “Why do you consider the Bible reliable on the deluge/flood.” Simple experts in that area are of the opinion as follows:
1- The Woolly Mammoth and the Ice Age
By Wayne Jackson
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* 4Share
Frozen mammoth discovered in Siberia! So stated newspaper headlines in October of 1999. The body of a woolly mammoth – the entire carcass intact – had been discovered in northern Siberia. The creature subsequently was retrieved from the ice and flown to Khatanga where scientists will do research on the remains. Geneticists will attempt to extract cells from the body and clone a new mammoth, using a female elephant as a surrogate mother.
The woolly mammoth was a huge beast that roamed the earth several thousand years ago. It is well-known from numerous cave paintings. The creature stood some thirteen to fourteen feet high – about the size of a fullgrown African bull elephant.
One of the great mysteries of geologic history is why mammoths became extinct. Various theories have been proposed. Some scientists suggest that these massive animals were the first species to be exterminated by man (Boyd, p. 479). There really is no support for this view. No evidence has been discovered of ancient mammoth traps, nor have there been any traces of arrow or axe blows on the bones from the many discoveries of these creatures.
The Mammoth Mystery
The most common view is that the mammoths did not survive a sudden and severe climatic change. Let us consider some of the known facts regarding the demise of these great beasts.
The evidence for widespread mammoth deaths involves vast regions of the polar-area of the northern hemisphere. One news article states:
“All over the frozen northern parts of Siberia and Canada we find the frozen carcasses of hundreds of thousands of large mammal species. These are mainly mammoths, but also [there are] wooly rhinos and other creatures of this kind.”
In some areas the tusks of the mammoths protruded (like tombstones) so profusely from the frozen tundra that it generated trade in fossil ivory for centuries, extending all the way to China.
It is obvious that the mammoth herds died quite rapidly; they were, so to speak, quick-frozen. James D. Dana, who served as Professor of Natural History and Geology at Yale, in his renowned work, A Manual of Geology, wrote that “the encasing in ice of huge Elephants, and the perfect preservation of the flesh, shows that the cold finally became suddenly extreme, as of a single winter’s night, and knew no relenting afterwards” (Price, p. 132 – orig. emp.).
Sir Henry Howorth, a 19th century archaeologist, assembled a massive amount of material concerning the mammoth graveyards. Incidentally, Howorth was rather hostile toward Christianity. Anyway, he attributed the quick-freeze to a “change of climate” that “must have been sudden, and must also have been continental” (p. 94).
The freeze occurred so rapidly that the bodies of these huge beasts did not have time to decompose. There have been numerous cases where the flesh of mammoths was so well-preserved that the meat was still edible by bears and wolves.
In 1901 a mammoth carcass was found so well-preserved that there were food fragments, as yet unswallowed, in its mouth. Moreover, there was more than twenty pounds of vegetation still in the stomach cavity – some ofwhich was not yet decayed. The animal had died and been frozen in virtually a matter of hours (Dillow, pp. 319-20).
Another amazing revelation amidst these discoveries is the fact that the stomach content of some of these creatures indicated they had been grazing on vegetation that grows only in warm regions, yet they were quite near the north pole. Scientists were mystified.
Uniformitarianism
At this point we must take a brief excursion and discuss the concept of “uniformitarianism,” as advanced by the advocates of Darwinian evolution.
Uniformitarianism is the notion that the earth’s features, as currently observed, are the result of gradual changes, over a very long period of time (supposedly, several billion years). Thus, the slow processes we see occurring now are a commentary on the forces of nature in the past. The favorite phrase in the evolutionary vocabulary is: “The present is a key to the past.” The late George Simpson of Harvard, known by his peers as “Mr. Evolution,” opined that without the uniformitarian concept “there could be no really scientific study of any kind of history” (p. 742).
The fact of the matter is, the data cited above represent a “mammoth” obstacle to uniformitarian (evolution) theory.
An alternate concept for explaining earth’s features is called “catastrophism,” i.e., the idea that the planet’s surface has been subject to violent changes in the past – and on a worldwide scale. The most significant of these would be the global Flood of Noah’s day. Let us reflect upon several matters related to this theme.
First, it is well known that in the ancient past, the earth was characterized by a universally mild climate. There is evidence aplenty for this. For example, fossil remains of ivy; grapevines, oaks, walnuts, and magnolias in Greenland – within eleven degrees of the north pole – reveal a once-summer-like climate in that region. Coral within fossil rocks, discovered near Point Barrow, Alaska, indicate that the waters there once were much warmer than at present; corals cannot live in water cooler than about 68 degrees.
It is also widely recognized that coal is the by-product of decayed vegetal matter. There are vast coal deposits in certain areas of the earth (e.g., Antarctica), which cannot now accommodate the lush vegetation necessary to produce billions of tons of coal. This clearly demonstrates that the climate in these regions must have been drastically different in the remote past.
Alfred R. Wallace, who proposed the theory of evolution about the same time that Darwin did, once wrote:
“There is but one climate known to the ancient fossil world as revealed by the plants and animals entombed in the rocks, and the climate was a mantle of spring-like loveliness which seems to have prevailed continuously over the whole globe” (p. 277).
A more recent apostle of evolution, Dr. Robert Jastrow, similarly has observed:
“Throughout the long reign of the giant reptiles, the world had known a mild and constant climate; on every continent the eye met gentle landscapes of low relief, with shallow seas and vast areas of swampland and tropical forest. The elements of the world were in perfect balance. . . "(p. 69).
The crucial question is: What so altered the surface of the earth so as to create the radically different features observed today? An increasing number of scientists are confessing that the theory of “uniformitarianism” simply cannot account for this change. “Catastrophism” is becoming an intriguing topic of discussion again.
Note the following testimony. “Of late there has been a serious rejuvenation of catastrophism in geological thought” (Brown, p. 456). “The profound role of major storms throughout geologic history is becoming increasingly recognized” (Nummendal, p. 23). “The hurricane, the flood, or the tsunami may do more in an hour or a day than the ordinary processes of nature have achieved in a thousand years” (Ager, p. 54).
The Flood
The disappearance of the great mammoths can be explained more reasonably in terms of the Genesis Flood, than by any of the many theories espoused by evolutionists. Let us pursue this momentarily.
Many scholars believe there is biblical evidence for the concept that, before the Flood, the earth was encompassed by a canopy of water vapor that diffused sunlight and created a “greenhouse” effect, which resulted in a uniformly warm climate. Too, it is probable that the land/water ratio was more evenly distributed in the antediluvian world. This also would facilitate more moderate temperatures. Joseph Dillow has made a strong defense of a pre-flood vapor canopy in his book, The Waters Above.
When God triggered the Flood, the canopy vapor collapsed, providing much of the water that flooded the planet. This, along with other geologic phenomena (e.g., volcanic activity) resulted in climatic conditions being altered radically – worldwide (cf. Oard, p. ii; Whitcomb & Morris, pp. 292ff). Following the Flood, for the first time the biblical record mentions “cold and heat, winter and summer” (Gen. 8:22).
As weather conditions changed – abruptly and drastically – the mammoths were quick-frozen in a sudden winter of the polar regions. Remember, we mentioned earlier that some of the mammoths had warm weather vegetation in their mouths and stomachs – frozen before lunch was over!
The Ice Age
This brings us to a discussion of the Glacial Period, more popularly called the “Ice Age.” Was there an Ice Age?
Geologists maintain there were several glacial periods in the earlier history of our planet. Supposedly, these lasted for millions of years. Great sheets of ice blanketed a considerable area of North America and Europe. The cause of this circumstance is a matter of considerable confusion among evolutionary geologists. More than sixty theories have been advanced in an attempt to explain the Ice Age (Oard, p. i).
Though some religionists have denied the existence of any ice age at all, respectable creationist scholars have argued persuasively that there is ample, widespread evidence for a post-Flood glacial period. Bernard Northrup, who has studied the geologic evidence from coast to coast and abroad, has argued that an ice age followed the Flood and was itself quite catastrophic. He insists, however, that this historical period (which he believes is alluded to in the book of Job) can be fitted into the “young earth” chronology of strict creationism (pp. 93-100).
Michael Oard, a meteorologist, contends that the evidence prohibits the theory that there were multiple ice ages. He argues for one – a catastrophic icy era which came “as a consequence of the Genesis Flood” (p. iv).
Thus, the Christian need not deny that there was an historical period during which ice was extensive on our planet; he must simply recognize that the evolutionary view of such is seriously disputed.
Sources/Footnotes
* Ager, Derek V. (1981), The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record (New York: John Wiley & Sons).
Boyd, Robert & Silk, Joan (1997), How Humans Evolved (New York: Norton).
Brown, W. Bahngress (1974), Geology 2; quoted in Morris, Henry (1997) That Their Words May be Used Against Them, San Diego: Institute of Creation Research.
Dillow, Joseph C. (1981), The Waters About (Chicago: Moody Press).
Howorth, H.H. (1887), The Mammoth and the Flood (London: Sampson, et al).
Jastrow, Robert (1977), _Until The Sun Dies (New York: Warner Books).
Northrup, Bernard (1986), “There Really Was An Ice Age,” Proceedings of the First International Conference on Creationism (Pitrsburg: Creation Science Fellowship).
Nummendal, Dag (1974), Geotimes 27, No. 2.
Oard, Michael J. (1987), “The Ice Age And The Genesis Flood,” Impact (June).
Price, G.M. (1913), The Fundamentals of Geology (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press).
Simpson, George G., Pittendrigh, C.S., and Tiffany L.H. (1957), Life: An Introduction to Biology (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Co.).
Wallace, Alfred R. (1886), The Geological Distribution of Animals (New York: Harper Bros.), Vol. 1.
Whitcomb, John, and Morris, Henry (1961), The Genesis Flood (Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed [source - retrieved from www.christiancourier.com/articles/848-the-woolly-mammoth-and-the-ice-age on 9/30/2011]
2 - 19 Fossilization
Study By: Lance Ponder
“He will be buried with a donkey's burial, Dragged off and thrown out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.” Jer 22:19 (NASB)
There are six main fossilization processes. These processes are observable and repeatable under laboratory conditions, if not in nature. Most require water or rapid burial in sediment or both. Almost all fossils present on earth today can easily be explained by a planetary flood but cannot be satisfactorily explained by supposing many small local catastrophes over millions of years.
Freezing is extremely rare in nature today, although numerous animals have been found frozen into fossils. They are preserved in part or whole, even with hair and flesh intact. Most have been found along the northern parts of Siberia and Alaska and include thousands of wooly mammoths, bear, rhinoceros, and other mammals. A few have even been found with food still in their mouths and undigested food in their stomachs. This indicates the animals were frozen suddenly and conditions were such that scavengers were unable to consume them. If an animal is trapped under an avalanche, for example, it would be protected from scavengers, but it would probably live long enough to swallow what was in its mouth. In many cases the places where they are found are on frozen planes. This makes burial by a normal avalanche extremely unlikely.
Most scientists agree that the polar regions were once much warmer than they are today. Frozen tropical animals makes it clear that the temperature change was extreme and sudden. Either the atmosphere changed or the landmass suddenly moved to a cold place, or both. Whichever is the case, the event impacted a vast region seemingly simultaneously. This is suggested by the fact that there is no indication that once frozen these animals were ever thawed and refrozen. If that happened they would have rotted or been picked clean by scavengers. Many of these animals have been found with almost no deterioration at all.
Extremely rapid freezing of a tropical area seems highly unlikely in the uniformitarian model if for no other reason than large scale catastrophes of any kind are denied. Some people theorize that atmospheric debris from an asteroid wiped out most of the dinosaurs and caused an ice age. There are several difficulties with this theory. With regard to frozen remains of tropical animals in polar regions, It seems extremely unlikely that even large amounts of dirt in the atmosphere would have cause the surface to cool fast enough in such a vast area to account for the abundance of frozen remains.
Leaving aside human theories, the biblical account provides an historical record that offers much more plausible explanations for the evidence at hand. One scientific theory based on the biblical account is that the animals were alive before the flood and were frozen early in the flood. Water vapor in the atmosphere may have caused a more uniform temperature around the planet. As the atmosphere suddenly released great amounts of water, polar regions experienced rapid freezing. Northern Alaska and Siberia could have experienced a temperature drop of 100°F or more in a matter of hours. Another variation on this theory is that when fountains of the deep broken open, tectonic plates moved whole continents from tropical to polar regions in a few days or possibly hours.
Fossilized hard animal parts (bones and shells) are most common type of fossil. Usually when an animal dies its soft parts rot or get consumed by scavengers and the bones disintegrate over time. In some cases bones get buried in sediment. Bones get preserved as fossils when the sediment hardens into rock before the bones have a chance to disintegrate. Most limestone and sandstone fossils are of this type. The most likely cause of this type of fossilization is a flood.
The numbers and densities of such deposits around the world testify to massive sudden flooding. The uniformitarian model would require hundreds if not thousands of major localized floods trapping thousands of organisms, large and small. The flood of Noah, however, accounts for all such fossils.
Castings are similar to fossilized hard parts except that none of the original organism remains. Sediments cover the animal and harden. The animal inside dissolves. Water seeping into the cavity carries minerals in and organic waste out. The casting is eventually filled and formed. The result is a replica in part or whole of the original animal. The cast must be formed quickly with some sort of cementing process. Burial by flood debris is much more common than volcanic burial, yet bodies found in Pompeii are an excellent example of natural castings. The volcanic rock covered and quickly cooled to form casts around the bodies. The bodies themselves eventually rotted and rainwater filled in the casting with sediment to form fossil castings.
The most beautiful and exotic fossils are those of soft animals. Particularly unique are jellyfish fossils, although any fossil of soft marine life is amazing. Fish are notoriously carnivorous. Dead soft marine parts almost never go uneaten by sea scavengers. Jellyfish are entirely soft, made mostly of water. Short of a violent flood of biblical proportions to carry and churn vast amounts of sediment there is no logical explanation for sudden burial of ocean creatures like jellyfish.
Petrifaction is another fossilization process similar to castings. The filling material is typically carried into the casting by underground water carrying minerals. The petrified forests of Yellowstone Park and in Arizona are well known examples of this type of fossilization. As with castings, petrifaction requires very rapid burial and cementing of the mold around the original plant or animal life followed by a period of minerals being carried by water into the void left by the decay of the original organism. The vast petrified forests discovered in these places require a very rapid and large-scale hydraulic (flood) event to bury the quantity of life found there.
Fossilized tracks are the next kind of fossil. Tracks of all sorts of animal life, including humans, become fossils when the soft surface is cemented by powerful hydraulic force then gets covered by softer sediment. The tracks harden and can later be uncovered when the softer sediment is removed. Tracks of all sorts of creatures have been found in fossil beds around the world.
Fossils found in coal are the result of a different fossilization process called carbonization. In this process hydrogen and oxygen largely disappear leaving mostly carbon. Coal has been found in nearly every region of Earth including Antarctica. Coal is believed to be the end product of metamorphism of tremendous quantities of plant remains. Coal seams vary from a few inches to several feet of depth and may run in alternating layers with other sedimentary rock such as limestone. The density of the coal means either plants morphed into coal over a vast period or there was a vast amount of vegetation buried together suddenly. Alternating layers are explained in the uniformitarian model by saying an area alternated between forest and arid land over vast periods. The catastrophic Biblical model explains the layers as the result of shifting currents pushing and pressing accumulations of flood debris into layers buried rapidly. Although we have various peat bogs and the La Brea tar pits with us today, none of these demonstrate examples of coal formation or fossilization by carbonization today.
Except for freezing, all of the other fossilization methods require burial by flood or volcanic eruption. Castings, petrifaction and tracks specifically require water as part of the process. Carbonization requires water to be drawn out of organic material under great pressure. Uniformitarianism offers repeating cycles of local flooding as the explanation. Repeated limited locals floods fail to explain the density and distribution of fossils, sedimentary rock deposits, coal seams, and the worlds vast oil and natural gas reservoirs. Only the biblical flood offers a succinct single explanation for all of the fossil remains, limestone, coal and oil with its vast and diverse distribution.
Most fossilization methods require rapid burial. Cementing action takes very little time. The existence of fossils does not, in and of itself, require vast time. Only the theory of Evolution combined with geological Uniformitarianism requires vast time. [source - retrieved from bible.org/seriespage/19-fossilization on 9/30/2011]
3 - The extinction of the woolly mammoth: was it a quick freeze?
by Michael Oard
Summary
Apart from formerly glaciated areas, woolly mammoth remains are abundant in the surficial sediments of the mid and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, including western Europe, northern and eastern Asia, Alaska and the Yukon. There are probably millions of mammoths buried in the permafrost of Siberia alone. The mammoths are found with a wide variety of other mammals, large and small, many of which were grazers. They lived in a grassland environment with a long growing season, mild winters, very little permafrost, and a wide diversity of plants—quite different from the climate in the region today.
The mammoths and other animals colonised the region after the Flood during the ice age. The region’s climate during the ice age was ideal for rapid population growth and, in the 600 or so years before their demise, the population had grown to many millions of animals. They were buried in the dust storms that deposited the loess blankets found in those regions today. Some were entombed in a standing position. The good state of preservation of the stomach contents does not call for super-rapid freezing of the carcasses. Rather than food digestion, the mammoth stomach acts as a food storage pouch. The mammoths became extinct when, at the end of the ice age, the climate in the region became more continental, with colder winters, warmer summers, and drier conditions.
Frozen carcasses and many thousands of tons of bones and tusks of woolly mammoths are buried in Siberia and Alaska. In March 2000, the Discovery Channel produced a special on the excavation of a carcass in north central Siberia, called the Jarkov mammoth. This mammoth was cut out of the permafrost and transported by helicopter into cold storage for future analysis and possible cloning.1
Mammoth remains have puzzled scientists and laymen for hundreds of years. Many explanations have been offered. One of the most popular hypotheses is that one eventful day, the hairy elephants were peacefully grazing on grass and buttercups when suddenly, tragedy struck, and millions of them froze instantly.
This article examines the life and death of the woolly mammoth in Siberia, Alaska, and the Yukon Territory of Canada. These areas, together with the surrounding shallow ocean (Bering Strait), are called Beringia. There are still unknowns associated with the woolly mammoth and its environment in Beringia. Some information is conflicting. However, the data is pointing to a unique environment and extinction of the woolly mammoths in Beringia.
What is a woolly mammoth?
A woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) is one of several types of mammoths in the genus Mammuthus within the order Proboscidea. The woolly mammoth is essentially a hairy elephant with a large shoulder hump, a sloping back, small ears, tiny tail, unique teeth, a small trunk with a distinctive tip and two finger-like projections, huge spirally curved tusks up to 3.5 meters long, and spiral locks of dark hair covering a silky underfur.2
Mammoths are classified mainly on variables such as molar hypsodonty (height of the crown), number of lamellae (ridges on crown), and enamel thickness. History shows there has been much taxonomic splitting of mammoths, as well as other members of Proboscidea. It is likely that they are all descended from a single created kind.2 In general, there seem to be two main varieties of mammoths on both Eurasia and North America. The woolly mammoth is the smaller variety that generally inhabited the north. The second, more southern variety, from both Eurasia and North America can be lumped together for simplification and referred to as the Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi).
Figure 2. Distribution of woolly mammoth remains, and the mammoth steppe. Glaciated areas are shown speckled. Mammoth steppe is shown hatched. The area referred to as Beringia is shown separately (after Guthrie143). Note that the extent of the northern and eastern boundaries of the Scandinavian ice sheet is controversial.
Mammoth distribution
Mammoths are commonly found in surficial sediments from western Europe eastward through northern and eastern Asia, Alaska and the Yukon (Figure 2).3,4 Mammoth remains are also found on some of the islands in the Bering Sea5,6 and are dredged from the shallow continental shelves surrounding Beringia.7,8 Enormous numbers of ice age mammals, most commonly mammoths, are dredged up from the unconsolidated sediments of the North Sea by trawlers.9 Woolly mammoths are found in abundance south of the North American ice sheet. They are rare in formerly glaciated areas. Mammoth and mastodon teeth have been dredged from 40 sites along the continental shelf off the eastern US in water up to 120 m deep.10
In Siberia, the woolly mammoth inhabited the whole area from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Their east-west distribution is generally uniform, except that they are especially abundant in northeast Siberia.11 Their numbers increase farther north.12,13 Mammoth remains are amazingly abundant on the Lyakhov Islands14 and the other islands of the New Siberian Islands, 230 km north of the Arctic coast.12,15 Frozen mammoth carcasses are usually found eroding out of river banks and along the shore of the Arctic Ocean.
Mammoth fauna
Woolly mammoths are not the only fossil mammals found in the permafrost of Beringia. There are a wide range of other mammals, large and small, that accompany the mammoths. These include the woolly rhinoceros, wolf, fox, lion, brown bear, camel, deer, ground sloth, pika, wolverine, ferret, ground squirrel, moose, reindeer, yak, musk ox, giant beaver, lemming, porcupine, coyote, skunk, mastodon, antelope, sheep, voles, hare and rabbit, plus many species of birds, rodents, horses, and bisons.4,16–19 Frozen carcasses of these animals, especially the woolly rhinoceros, are also found. Generally, the same animals are found together throughout much of the mid and high latitudes of the Northern HemiÂsphere.3,20
How many mammoths are buried in Siberia?
There has been much controversy over how many woolly mammoths are frozen in the permafrost of Siberia. A few scientists attempt to downplay the number,21 but practically all observers describe the number in superlatives.
The top expert on woolly mammoths in Siberia, Nikolai Vereshchagin, has spent nearly a half century of research on the mammoth fauna. He states that there are many hundreds of thousands of large mammals buried in Siberia22 and also many millions of bones.23 One estimate he made for one region of Siberia would suggest five million mammoths buried.24 Is he exaggerating? It would be conservative, therefore, to conclude that several million mammoths are buried in Beringia.
Perplexing mammoth data
There are many perplexing aspects to the Siberian mammoth finds, including the existence of frozen carcasses and the good preservation of their stomach contents. In addition, a number of the carcasses and skeletons have been unearthed in a general standing position, as if the animal sank in a bog.25–27 The Selerikhan horse was entombed in a general standing position.28 The new Jarkov mammoth was dug up in a standing position.
It is also relevant that an analysis of several features of the carcasses shows that three woolly mammoths and two woolly rhinoceroses suffocated, including the Beresovka (or Beryosovka) mammoth.29–32 The Beresovka mammoth also had a broken pelvis, ribs, and right foreleg.13,27
For carcasses to be frozen and the bones and tusks well preserved, quick burial is necessary. But how could all these woolly mammoths have been forced into the rock hard permafrost, which starts about half a meter deep, below the summer melt zone?
Beringian paleoenvironmental deductions
The animals themselves tell us much about the paleoenvironment —a controversial subject.33 The diversity of animals was so great that there must have been a highly diverse vegetation.34 The only similar diversity of mammals is on the Serengeti of East Africa.34,35 Practically all the large mammals were grazers that ate a wide variety of herbaceous vegetation, mainly grasses. Based on the large numbers of healthy individuals, Beringia, as well as Europe and western Russia, must have been mostly one huge grassland during the ice age, called the mammoth steppe or steppe tundra (Figure 2).3,34,36,37
Figure 3. Ability of animals to walk through deep snow or to stay on top of crusted snow depends on foot loading and chest height (after Guthrie).144 The sheep and wolf could not have tolerated deep snow or boggy substrate.
To maintain a large variety of herbaceous vegetation on the mammoth steppe would have required a long growing season with warm soil and rapid spring growth.38 This contrasts strongly to the current environment where green vegetation does not appear in northern Siberia until mid June to early July.39 Ninety percent of the biomass of grass is in the roots below the surface, and the grass cannot grow until the snow melts and the soil warms up. Therefore, winters must have been milder with light snowfall. The growth pattern of the mammals reinforces the deduction of a longer growing season.34 The shaggy ruffs, heavy horns, long tusks, and enormous antlers are what wildlife managers would recognise as indicators of high-quality habitat with light competition and a long growing season.40 Open range with light snowfall during winter is also supported by the existence of several animals that are intolerant of deep snow, such as the saiga antelope, bighorn sheep, Dall sheep, and wolf (Figure 3).41
See Part 2