The Old Testament Review

This is part 3 of 6 of the third chapter of my book, Biblical Glasses.

I like to think about the first 1000 years of life on earth. Everywhere was a new frontier! People moved about with their families and animals all over the world. They explored God’s creation, but many of them grew away from God as they went. The Biblical lineage shows Adam’s son, Seth, his son, Enosh, his son, Kenan, his son, Mahalel, his son, Jared, his son, Enoch, his son, Methuselah, his son, Lamech, and his son, Noah. Noah was born in 3057 B.C., just 1056 years after creation and only 126 years after Adam’s death! Noah could have possibly known and even had conversations with Seth, the son of Adam.

By this time, the human and animal populations were substantial, as life spread all over the world. God grew increasingly angry at the people in the world because of their sinful ways. So before Noah turned 500 years old, God told him to build an ark. This must have seemed strange, because God had not been involved in the lives of men like He was before sin existed. Noah was the only man on earth who still loved God. Noah and his sons were the only men still worshipping God; that is why God chose them. On a side note, secular historians show the first human civilization, the Sumerians, growing up in the Tigris/Euphrates river valley around this time in history, again fitting quite well with the Biblical timeline.

Noah, probably over a period of 120 years, built the ark to God’s specifications, despite much ridicule from his neighbors. Experts have estimated that the ark, described in the Bible to be at least 450 feet long, seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet high (three stories), would have been able to withstand a worldwide flood. The funny thing is that Noah probably built the ark in a field nowhere near a large body of water. People must have thought he was loony! Then the rains came; their last thought before perishing in the raging waters was probably that Noah was not so crazy after all.

God brought a pair of each kind of animal to Noah. He did not bring two of every animal, just two of every kind. There were two dogs—not two Labradors, two German Shepherds, two Poodles, etc. You see, natural selection is absolutely true as we learned in chapter two. Two dogs reproduce to create a dog. Over time, breeding and natural selection can result in different types of dogs, but they are still dogs. In fact, scientists in Europe recently determined that all dog species, from a St. Bernard to a Chihuahua, originated from a female wolf very recently! Professional breeders can change the breed of a dog within a couple generations by selective breeding. We see this occurring all over the place. Think of cattle breeding! Some are designed for dairy products; others are designed for beef. Evolution requires two dogs to produce another type of creature. This has never been observed, because it is impossible. It never happened! It will never happen naturally.

One question that arises with Noah’s ark full of animals asks how wolves laid next to lambs without eating them. The Bible says all animals were herbivores before the flood (see Genesis 1:30 compared to 9:3). The animals were friendly with each other until after the flood, when meat-eating was first allowed.

When the rains came, it was possibly the first rain ever to come on the earth. The Bible tells of water coming up from the ground to provide for plants, animals, and humans during pre-flood life, like an irrigation system. Remember that God created the sky on day two to separate the waters below from the waters above. Well, now God was unleashing the waters above upon the earth! It rained for forty days and forty nights.

While there is no certain evidence either way, some flood researchers say a meteor shower may have come through the Milky Way Galaxy during this time and had magnificent impact on our planet. Perhaps, icy fragments of these meteors broke away and formed rings around the outer-lying planets of our galaxy. It is interesting that Saturn’s rings have been dated as only a few thousand years old! Some pieces of these icy meteors may have hit Mars, accounting for the evidence of water on the planet. Finally, fragments may have hit the backside of the moon. The pieces that missed the moon could have come toward earth, where they would have impacted at the poles, knocking the earth off its original axis and causing a rapid freezing effect.

All flood scholars acknowledge a vast amount of rain—enough to flood the whole world—would have had catastrophic environmental and climate-changing effects. Compile these effects with tremendous earth-shifting earthquakes and volcanic activity, and the result is an ice age that develops rather quickly.

An ice age caused by a rapid freezing effect explains why archaeologists find mammoths and other animals frozen standing straight up. They are often found at the poles eating tropical plants. How did tropical plants get to the north and south poles? Well, there is reason to believe the earth before this catastrophe had a temperate climate all over. It was beautiful day after day; then the rains came.

The ice age that occurred as a result of post-flood climate changes may have helped in natural selection and speciation among humans, plants, and animals. Keep in mind that speciation, or variation, does not constitute macro-evolution, which requires a gain of previously absent genetic information. Speciation represents a loss of genetic information.

Regardless of exactly how the flood occurred naturally, it definitely affected the earth in a major way. Before the flood, there were likely no continents. The earth was possibly represented by Pangaea, one large continent, and one large sea. Then the rains came. Mountains were raised, rivers and canyons were carved, and fossils were formed. It is interesting that the oldest living thing is a tree in California; the 4500-year-old “Methuselah Tree” fits perfectly with the end of the flood and is aptly named after the oldest human ever to walk the earth, Methuselah (3426–2457 B.C.), who lived 969 years as the Bible tells us.

The Bible tells us the flood covered the entire earth for several months. As the waters slowly receded, Noah sent out a dove (a symbol of peace) to search for dry land. The first time, there was nothing. The second time, there was an olive branch (a symbol of peace). The third time, the dove did not return; it had found land. The flood was over; God’s judgment was momentarily complete.

Days or weeks later, Noah’s ark settled in the mountains of Ararat in present day Iran. Some archaeologists claim to have found evidence of the ark in the mountains, but we rarely hear of it. God gave Noah a symbol, the rainbow, as His promise to never again judge the entire world with a flood. We see God’s symbol today, usually after a rain storm. The Bible says: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands” (Psalm 19:1). Sadly, many seem to miss the signs of creation.

When Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives stepped off the ark, the world was a very different place. For the first time, we have a landmark to see exactly where the new world (as we know it today) began. From the mountains of present day western Iran, Noah and his sons settled the Middle East, likely between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. God told the population of eight to “be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth” (Genesis 9:1).

Noah’s three sons were Ham, Shem, and Japheth. Ham, which means “dark, hot, or burnt,” and his descendants eventually settled into Egypt, Africa, and Asia. Shem, which means “named or renowned,” and his descendants eventually settled into the Middle East and northern Africa. Japheth, which means “opened, enlarged, fair skinned, and of light complexion,” and his descendants eventually settled into Europe and Russia. I say eventually, because the people did not follow God’s instructions right away. It took another punishment from God at the Tower of Babel to make them spread out all over the world.

As mentioned earlier, secular history shows the first civilization as the Sumerians; we find evidence of them around the time of the flood. It is likely that either the flood wiped out the Sumerians, and evidence we find is left over from the flood, or the Sumerian civilization was founded by Noah’s descendants soon after the flood.

Further testimony of the flood lies in the hundreds of flood stories circulating throughout nearly every culture in the world. Consider the Epic of Gilgamesh as just one example. These flood accounts would not have developed worldwide if the event did not actually occur. Nor would the accounts have spread worldwide unless a small population of people survived the event to tell their children and grandchildren about it! Additionally, secular scientists and historians have determined that the human population definitely bottlenecked at some point in recent history; perhaps this bottleneck took the population down to only eight people after a cataclysmic worldwide flood!

“The descendants of Shem, Ham and Japheth are evidenced, not only by Biblical history, but also in archaeological, anthropological, biological, ethnographical, ethnological, etymological, geological, and secular history.” Although the Bible follows only the lineage of Shem in full detail, we can be sure the lineages of Japheth and Ham continued in a similar manner. They definitely intermarried at locations where both groups of people lived, giving us the diverse ethnicity and so-called racial differences. Recalling our prior discussion of skin shades, it is interesting that the genetic difference in melanin, the skin tone-determining pigment, is almost too little to measure. It represents only about one-fiftieth of one percent (.0002) of our DNA!

The Biblical lineage shows Noah’s son, Shem, born 100 years before the flood. Shem and his wife had many sons and daughters, but Arphaxad, who was born after the flood in 2456 B.C., continued the Biblical lineage. The Bible lists Arphaxad’s son, Cainan, and his son, Shelah, and his son, Eber, and his son, Peleg, and his son, Reu, and his son, Serug, and his son, Nahor, and his son, Terah, and his son, Abram.

Around the time of Eber, the inhabitants of the post-flood world were not following God’s command to fill the earth. In fact, most people lived near each other under the reign of Nimrod, a descendant of Ham, and built the Tower of Babel. Babel is Hebrew for “babbling.” The Tower of Babel was likely a ziggurat used to practice astrology and worship the sun, moon, and stars. Because of their disobedience and evil ways, God caused the people to speak different languages. Unable to communicate, they spread out all over the world and thereby filled the earth, according to His command.

An interesting testimony to the events we have described so far in this chapter lies in the ancient Chinese language. Ancient Chinese words were made of symbols; the symbol for create was made up of breath, dust, walking, and alive. In other words, God created man by crafting him from the dust of the ground and breathing life into him to be alive and walk around. The symbol for devil or tempter was made up of garden, man, privately, and trees. Perhaps it came from the creation account in Genesis, where the devil privately tempted man to eat from the tree in the Garden of Eden. The ancient Chinese symbol for boat was compiled of the symbols for eight, people, and vessel. Of course, the flood account mentions eight people, Noah’s family, surviving the flood in a large vessel called an ark. Finally, the Bible mentions the Tower of Babel incident as God confusing the tongues or languages of the people so they would spread out on a journey all over the world. The ancient Chinese symbol for confusion was represented by symbols for tongue and right leg, meaning that “to confuse is to set out on a journey with a new tongue [or language].”

After the incident at the Tower of Babel, the population spread all over the world, and the Biblical lineage continued to Abram. Abram was born in 2036 B.C. By this time, there were dynasties beginning to form in China, and Egypt was entering its Middle Kingdom. The ice age was likely coming to an end; the earth was much like it is today. Job had likely already experienced his extreme suffering. (Many scholars believe Job lived in the Orient around 2200 B.C.) Peoples’ lives were becoming shorter; it was rare to find someone over 200 years old at this time. The Bible says that God has since put a limit on our age at 120 years. Not surprisingly, no one today lives over 120 years of age.