Physical Evidence Shows No Global Flood of Noah. Does It Matter?

Summary

Tens of thousands of annual layers of sediments in lake bottoms, and hundreds of thousands of annual layers of summer/winter snow pack in glaciers have been analyzed. If a year-long global flood had occurred, there would be clear disturbance in these layers, but no such disturbance is observed. This shows there has been no such flood.

Some groups suggest that much of the layered sedimentary rocks were deposited during a Noahic global flood. However, observation and thought regarding thick limestone layers, and caves and sinkholes found withing these layers, show that this is not plausible. These formations were formed over millions of years. Moreover, the order of plant and animal fossil in the rock layers comport with evolution and deposition over long periods, not with mass burial in one large inundation.

The theological significance of these findings is discussed. It is noted that there are multiple instances in the Bible of stories being told which are not factually accurate, but which convey moral or spiritual truths. These include Ahab and the prophet (I Kings 20), Nathan confronting David (II Samuel 12), and the parables of Jesus. It is suggested that the creation and flood narratives in Genesis 1-8 fall into this category. This poses no challenge to the authority of the Bible: an examination of II Timothy 3:15-17 shows that the Scriptures were not given to us to teach geology and biology, but rather to convey spiritual and moral truths that could not be inferred from observations of the physical world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tens of Thousands of Annual Layers (“Varves”) in Lake Bed Sediments  [[ showing no disturbance from global flood]]

In some lakes in northern latitudes, there are patterns of light and dark layers of sediment. Analyses of their composition (e.g., pollen from nearby terrestrial plants in bloom, and carbonate from tiny shelly organisms) establish that each pair of layers corresponds to the passage of the seasons of one year. In cold regions like Sweden the lakes freeze over in the winter, and then there is a distinctive rush of coarser sediment deposited on the lake bottom every spring when the ice and snow melt.

Below are plots of the sediment depth versus varve count for cores of sediment extracted from the bottoms of two lakes in Sweden. The upper left for each solid curve represents the top of the sediment core. The annual layers can be counted down through the core, starting from the present and going down for more than 9000 years B.P. (“Before Present”), with a fairly constant thickness per year of sediment deposition. There is no significant disturbance showing at the 4400 year B.P date of Noah’s Flood or at the 6000 B.P. date of the creation of the world, where these dates are derived from a literal interpretation of the Genesis narrative. These varve counts are independently confirmed by carbon-14 dating of plant samples taken from the sediments at various levels, where the carbon-14 dating was calibrated by tree ring data.

Lake Suigetsu in Japan is an ideal locale for annual varves, being sheltered from storms and from gross river deposits. The varves in Lake Suigetsu have been counted to more than 50,000 years ago, and have been described in detail by Davidson and Wolgemuth   . As described by Natural Historian these varves have been cross-correlated with carbon-14 dating, and by dating of ash-falls from known, ancient volcanic eruptions, which confirm their yearly nature. Thus,

“Multiple ash layers in multiple cores have been dated by several radiometric dating methods and those dates are consistent with the varve counts. For example, an ash layer found at varve count 9000 yields a radiometric date of around 9000 years.” 

The varves described above were laid down in relatively undisturbed lakes, and thus invalidate the notion of a raging worldwide flood which occurred in 2400 B.C. (4400 years B.P), or anytime in the past 50,000 years.

(Note, anatomically modern hunter/gatherer humans have been around for about 200,000 years, but the world of Noah’s day includes agriculture, cities, and bronze and iron implements [Gen.6:22], which puts it less than about 20,000 years ago, and probably less than 6000 years ago).

Hundreds of Thousands of Annual Layers in Arctic and Antarctic Ice Cores [[ showing no trace of global flood in past 400,000 years]]

Cores of ice, hundreds of feet long, have been drilled out of glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica. Summer/winter layering can be discerned in them. The GISP2 core from Greenland has been counted back at least 110,000 years, using the corroboration of two to three independent methods. Antarctic cores go back more than 400,000 years, quite undisturbed by any world-wide Flood. At least nine different methods were used to date the layers of the Antarctic cores.

Hugh Ross comments:

How do scientists confirm that these ice layers correspond to years of Earth’s past history? They can check for telltale markers, such as volcanic ash signatures. The Krakatoa eruption of 1883 and the Vesuvius eruption that wiped out Pompeii and Herculaneum in AD 79 left their specific marks in exactly the annual layers anticipated. Climatic cycles also allow for testing. As it turns out, these cycles-caused by regular variations in the eccentricity or ellipticity of Earth’s orbit (period = 100,000 years) and the tilt of Earth’s orbit (period = 41,000 years)-correspond perfectly with what’s seen in those core layers. Finally, researchers have performed radiometric dating of minerals embedded in the ice to make sure their age corresponds with their annual layer, and in each case it does.

For example, at the right of this photograph of a 22-inch section of a Greenland ice core is a dark brown volcanic ash layer that occurs at about 55,000 years down according to annual ice layer counting. Analysis of its contents shows it to be the same as the “Z2” ash layer which has been widely found in Atlantic Ocean floor sediments and independently dated to 55,000 years.

Volcanic Ash Layer in Ice Core Cross-Dated to 55,000 Years Old. Source: “Synchronization of ice cores using volcanic ash layers” from Centre for Ice and Climate at University of Copenhagen , http://www.iceandclimate.nbi.ku.dk/research/strat_dating/synch_ice_core_rec/vol_ash_layer/

See Some Simple Evidences for an Old Earth for more details on layered lake sediments, glacier cores, and limestone layers.

Thick Limestone Layers and Caves Among the Rock Layers  [[ showing that the thousands of feet of sedimentary rock layers were deposited over long ages, not during a year-long global Flood]]

Limestones are deposited by the slow raining down of shelly organisms as they live, grow, and die, in a mainly clear body of water where sand and mud sediments are not being brought in to commingle with the animal shells. For instance, limestone formations are depositing in some areas of the Caribbean, where there are no major continental rivers dumping sand or silt into the ocean nearby. In many areas of the earth, in the midst of other rock layers, there are over a thousand feet of limestone deposits. These limestones would require many years to form, in relatively clear, calm waters. They could not have been deposited in the midst of a raging, worldwide Flood.

After the shelly remains have been consolidated into limestone rock, and that rock has been raised by tectonic forces above sea level, slightly acidic (freshwater) rain from the atmosphere can seep into it and erode channels and large caves. Sometimes these caves reach up to the land surface, which then collapses into the cave to form a sinkhole. Such cave formations are found by geologists with hundreds of feet of sedimentary rock layers above and below them. This sequence of events would take many thousands of years to happen, and could not occur in middle of a year-long global Flood.

There are many other lines of evidence showing that the main sedimentary rock layers were formed over millions of years, not in the course of a year-long flood, and showing no trace within these layers of a recent global inundation.

Deborah and Loren Haarsma described eight lines of observational evidence available to geologists in the early 1800’s, which contradicted a young earth model:

Because of this kind of evidence, by about 1840 virtually all practicing geologists, including Christian geologists, believed that the earth must be at least millions of years old. These geologists were not atheists who set out to disprove the Bible, nor did they necessarily have a “soft” view of Scripture. Many started out with a firm commitment to interpreting Genesis as literal accurate history, and pursued this view for well over a century. If the rocks of the earth had been consistent with a young earth and a global flood model, these scientists surely would have found it. Instead, the earth itself testified otherwise, over and over again. Christian geologists did not, however, abandon the Bible. While investigating the book of nature, they also investigated the book of Scripture, considering other ways to understand the meaning of Genesis 1.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Edited from book review:  “Friend of Science, Friend of Faith” by Gregg Davidson: A Comprehensive Treatment of Bible and Science  [[showing order of fossils in rock layers comports with old earth, not recent global flood]] :

…Young earth creationists sometimes claim that the reason that humans and other modern mammals are not found in the lower rock layers is that they were able to run to higher ground as the floodwaters rose. The figure below illustrates a representative fossil sequence if “fleeing to higher ground” was a dominant mechanism for fossil sorting.

It depicts various slow-moving animals like shrews, plus both ferns and flowering plants, appearing in the lower sedimentary rock layers. These plants and animals would not have been able to flee the lowlands, and thus would have been swept away early and buried in the lower sedimentary deposits. Meanwhile, more mobile animals like giraffes and predatory dinosaurs and elephants would be able to escape to higher ground. Of course, there would be both ferns and flowering plants in higher as well as lower elevations, and so these plants would be buried in the higher sedimentary layers along with the elephants and therapod dinosaurs. Flying creatures like birds and pterodactyls would take refuge in the tops of the highest trees on the highest hills and mountains, before they were finally swept away to be buried together in the very highest rock layers from the Flood.

Cell phone photo of Figure 18 from Friend of Science, Friend of Faith. Copyright Gregg Davidson. Original caption: “Expected fossil sequence if based on the ability to flee rising flood waters, and the sequence as actually found. Horizontal lines represent borders between lower/older layers and higher/younger layers.”

The figure plainly shows that that is not what we actually observe. In reality, pterodactyls and dinosaurs of all kinds are found only in the lower, “Mesozoic” rock layers, not in the upper layers. There are little or no flowering plant remains down there. In the “Cenozoic” rock layers which lie above the Mesozoic are found all kinds of modern-type mammals, including very sluggish ones, and only in those layers do we find a large variety of flowering plants.

The book includes similar figures showing an expected fossil sequence for hydrodynamic or vibrational sorting of animal remains of various shapes and sizes by the moving floodwaters and also an expected fossil sequence for sedimentary rock layers attributed to the global Flood versus post-Flood deposits; again it is shown that these “Flood geology” sequences do not match what we actually find in the sedimentary rock layers. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Global Or Local Flood?

In light of the physical evidence militating against a global flood, a number of conservative scholars suggest that the Noah story derives from a widespread local flood in Mesopotamia, which did not kill all humans and terrestrial animals on earth apart from those on the ark. From Noah’s point of view, the whole earth (the Hebrew word eretz can mean “land”) was indeed inundated. In my opinion, this is a viable approach, and perhaps a massive local flood did lead to the development of this narrative, but I doubt that the earliest readers of this passage would have seen it as anything other than a global event.

Using Stories To Teach Deeper Truths

Another approach to dealing with the Genesis Flood narrative is to recognize that in Scripture God sometimes inspires stories or word pictures that are not literally true, but are given to convey some spiritual or moral point. To focus on the literal story would be misleading; the key meaning is expressed metaphorically, and emerges only after further interpretation.

For instance, in I Kings 20 a prophet wants to rebuke King Ahab for sparing an enemy king. The prophet does so by disguising himself with a headband and telling a made-up story about having let a captive escape. After he got the king to agree that that sort of irresponsibility deserved judgment (the king thought this story was true), the prophet whipped off his headband and revealed that this story was really about the king’s actions. But note, the story itself, like the Genesis creation narrative, was not literally true.

When the prophet Nathan confronted David over killing Uriah and taking Uriah’s wife Bathsheba (II Samuel 12), Nathan started off with telling a story about a rich man robbing a poor man of a lamb. Nathan presented it as a true story, even though it was not. After David himself pronounced judgment on such behavior, Nathan rounded on him and said “You are the rich man in this story!”  It would have been inappropriate for David to brand Nathan as a false prophet for telling a story that was not literally true. Likewise, it is inappropriate to criticize Genesis for being factually inaccurate or to criticize scientists for pointing out this inaccuracy.

For most of Jesus’ parables, the hearer is expected to figure out that the story is not really about some son who ran away and fed pigs or about some unfortunate traveler who got mugged on the way to Jericho. The hearer needs to enter into the story and see that he or she is represented by one or more of the characters in it; that was the point of the parable, not whether the story itself ever actually happened.

Was Jesus Mistaken on Creation and Noah?

Although he did not explicitly discuss Adam or the Fall, Jesus referred to people and events in the Genesis 1-7 narrative as though they were literally true (e.g. Mat 24:37-38). However, we now know this is not supported by the physical evidence. Does this mean Jesus was grossly mistaken here?

Not at all. It would not have been loving and productive for him to stand up and tell his hearers, “I am here to tell you that the earth was not made in six 24-hour days, and there was no global flood 2500 years ago that killed all but 6 humans”.   Jesus was nearly always speaking to Jews who literally believed the Old Testament creation story. Often, they were debating him based on the Scriptures. It was therefore entirely appropriate for him to answer from those very Scriptures, and to draw on them for illustrations.

In one dispute Jesus referred his accusers not to the “The law,” but to “Your law” (John 10:34), to make that point.  A parallel example of citing texts which are culturally relevant to one’s hearers is found in Paul’s ministry. In Act 17 he quotes Greek poets to the Athenians, and he quotes Greek sayings in several of his letters. These sayings reinforce his point on grounds that the other persons could accept. Modern preachers do the same with sermon illustrations drawn from the Chronicles of Narnia or some modern movie.

Jesus, as the Word and God the Son, was presumably involved in some measure with the divine initiative to give the ancient Israelites a creation story (including Noah’s Flood) which met their spiritual needs by accommodating within their physical worldview (fixity of species, relatively recent creation, etc.). Since Jesus was speaking to Jews with that same worldview and who had a high regard for the Scriptures, it was the wise and loving thing for him to do to continue to work within that physical framework, rather than teaching them modern science.

Just as the original inspiration of Genesis worked within the pre-existing worldview of the Old Testament Israelites, so Jesus’ discourse worked within the worldview of the New Testament Israelites. He didn’t try to correct every wrong idea in their heads, just the crucial beliefs at the time. This is an example of accommodation of revelation to the limitations of the hearers. We should be impressed here by Jesus’ wisdom and communication skills here, instead of disputing over “error.”

Interestingly, Jesus himself remarks on an instance of this sort of accommodation in regards to the Old Testament law on divorce in Deut 24:1-4. This passage allowed a man to divorce his wife and send her away if he found “something indecent” in her.  Jesus accepted the whole Law as inspired by God, yet he explicitly rejected this command. This (along with other instances where he contradicts the Law) demonstrates that Jesus did not believe in biblical inerrancy in the simplistic, absolute sense that some evangelicals promote.

Even more relevant for our purpose is the explanation he gives for why he sets aside this law: “It was because of your hardness of heart that he wrote you this law” (Mark 10:9, Matt.19:8). Jesus makes it clear that God’s basic moral standard was no divorce for anything other than adultery, but that God in giving the Mosaic Law had accommodated to the limited moral character of the ancient Israelites.  This, of course, parallels God’s accommodation of the ancient Israelites’ scientific knowledge.

In the course of telling the parable of the mustard seed, Jesus makes a blanket, apparently factual statement that the mustard seed is “smaller than all the seeds on earth.” (Mk 4:31). The point of this parable was not to make a statement about botany, but to illustrate the growth of the kingdom of God from small beginnings. Thus, we can and should make use of the God-given extrabiblical evidence to assess whether Jesus’s statement about seed sizes was literally true or not (it was not). And that is what I and millions of Christians do with the other statements of Jesus which seem to bear on the physical world, including Noah, the Flood, and human origins.

Jesus employed a range of rhetorical devices to communicate his revolutionary concepts. His statements that the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds and that birds make nests in the branches of the mustard tree are not literally accurate, but we look past that to hear the points he is making about the kingdom of God.   Consistency demands that we likewise look past his literal treatment of the Genesis stories and focus on the points he was making in those teachings and debates.

The fact that Jesus referred to Noah in Matthew 24 as a specific person with specific details on the Flood has no bearing on whether the Noah story is literally true. Jesus gave a specific name (Lazarus) to the poor man in the story of the rich man and Abraham’s bosom in Luke 16:19-31. In the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-35) Jesus provides a specific location (the road from Jerusalem to Jericho). In both that story and the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) there are far more details given than in the Noah passage in Matthew 24. So we cannot use the presence of specific names, locations, and many details to claim that a certain story is literally true, whether or not we would classify it as a parable.

Jesus’s point in this passage was not to teach that Noah’s Flood actually happened. His point was to urge his hearers to “Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming” (Mat 24:42). Jesus wisely and effectively drew on a dramatic story (Noah’s Flood) which all his hearers were familiar with, as an illustration of unexpected and catastrophic judgement.

Following this line of reasoning, perhaps the creation and Flood narratives in Genesis 1-8 were given to convey to the Israelites certain truths they needed to know about God and nature and themselves. The stories were framed in terms of the “science of the day” in the ancient Middle East (e.g. the sky was a solid dome or disk, which supported the waters above and the planets; animals reproduced exactly after their kind, etc.).  God apparently did not try to correct their (erroneous) notions of geology and biology, since that was not the purpose. Rather, he worked within those categories in the process of teaching them that the One God is sovereign over all of nature. Genesis demythologized the natural world: rather than the sun and moon being gods that man had to serve, they were just “things” that God created to serve mankind. This was a huge and effective subversion of the surrounding pagan worldviews.

For more on interpreting the Genesis narratives in light of modern science, see Evolution and Faith: My Story, Part 2 and Adam, the Fall, and Evolution: Everybody Stay Calm .

What Is the Bible About?

If the Bible purported to be teaching truths about geology and biology, the conclusions above would be troubling. But that is not the case. The clearest statement as to the purpose and content of the Bible is found in II Timothy 3:15-17:

…and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,  so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (NIV)

 There is nothing here about addressing physical sciences; for that, the good Lord has given us eyeballs and brains, so we can figure that out with our natural powers. But what we cannot deduce from the physical world are the specifics of how to relate to a nonphysical Creator, and for that we have the Scriptures. They convey the way of salvation, and provide moral guidance so that we are “thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

APPENDIX: The Chiastic Literary Structure of the Noah Narrative

A common literary construct in the Old Testament, and in other ancient literature, is the chiasm. In typical modern European compositions, we often have an introduction, the main body of text which builds a case or advances a narrative, and the conclusion or climax, where the key point is stated. In chiastic passages, the main point appears in the middle, and the other points are arranged symmetrically around it. For instance, if the main point is “X”, a chiasm might be written as”

A

B

X

B’

A’

In the case of the Noah narrative, this structure is implemented some 17 layers deep:

(Source: http://www.reenactingtheway.com/uploads/1/5/2/9/15291334/1090778.jpg?540 )

This elaborate literature structure suggests that this narrative is a literary construct, rather than an unembellished recounting of actual history.