Page 56 - Advanced Genesis - Creationism - Student Textbook

The Flood

As a result of mankind’s continual wickedness, God decides to destroy
all living things off the face of the earth, but preserve Noah and his
family, and two of every kind of living air-breathing animals. For over
100 years, Noah constructed an ark for the salvation of man and animal.
Then God sent a flood that covered the entire earth. It came suddenly
and with cataclysmic results.

The extent of the Genesis Flood is partly determined by the meaning of
32
the word ‘earth’ (Hebrew erets) in Genesis 1–10, and (Greek kosmos) in 2 Peter 3:5–7. What is erets in
Gen. 6:1 referring to? Genesis 6:5–7 suggests that the reference is therefore to the ‘earth’ of Gen. 1:1
and 2:1 (i.e. all that is not the ‘heavens’), for in Gen. 6:7 there is an echo of the creation (Hebrew bara)
of men and animal life recorded in Gen. 1:20–30. Moreover the words of Gen. 8:22 would hardly follow,
if the promise in v. 21 applied only to the inhabitants of the early Middle East, for ‘seedtime and harvest’
are universal phenomena, in the same way that ‘day and night’ bring us to the universal context of
creation (Gen. 1:5). This apparent universality continues in Gen. 9, where it is not regional man whose
life is protected by law, but man made in God’s image (v. 6). Accordingly, the covenant of Gen. 9:9 and
following establishes the universally experienced rainbow as the pledge of God’s promise never again to
destroy the whole earth (the word again is erets).

2 Peter 3 clinches this line of reasoning, for in this chapter, Peter refutes uniformitarianism (v. 4) and
proclaims that uniformitarians are ‘willingly ignorant.’ He then states that after the creation of the
heavens and the earth in Gen. 1:1–2, the ‘world [Greek kosmos] that then was, being overflowed with
water, perished’ (v.6). The fact that the ‘heavens and earth which are now … are … reserved unto fire’ (v.
7), and will be replaced by ‘a new heavens and a new earth’ (v. 13) strongly suggests that the ‘world’ in
v. 6 (equivalent to the erets of Gen. 6) was universal in extent.

We read in Genesis 7 and 8 that “the fountains of the great deep” were broken up and poured out water
from inside the earth for 150 days (5 months). Plus it rained torrentially and globally for 40 days and
nights (“the floodgates [or windows of heaven] were opened”). No wonder all the high hills and the
mountains were covered, meaning the earth was covered by a global ocean (“the world that then was,
being overflowed with water, perished,” 2 Peter 3:6). All air-breathing life on the land was swept away
and perished.

Some creationists suggest that the earth was surrounded by a sphere or canopy of ice several miles
33
thick. It’s called the canopy theory and is a valid explanation of the reason for the drastic climate
change from before the flood to after the flood. Also it explains the source of the vast amount of water
that suddenly was dumped on the earth’s surface in order to flood the entire world. Those that support
the canopy theory believe that the canopy acted as a greenhouse on the earth and made the climate
stable and mild, allowing for a vast amount of vegetation to grow all around the earth. For a very
detailed explanation of the theory, go
https://www.creationevidence.org/evidence/crystillane_canopy_theory.php.

32 https://www.ancient-hebrew.org/definition/earth.htm#:~:text=erets,erets%2C%20Strong's%20%23776).
33 https://www.creationevidence.org/evidence/crystillane_canopy_theory.php
55