Origins 2(2):77-95 (1975).
Was the flood a local or a world-wide event? What does an analytical study of the Genesis account of the flood reveal?
PLEASE NOTE: Unfortunately, we are unable to reproduce all of the special accent marks that were present in our printed version of the Hebrew transliteration. Our apologies for any inconvenience this might cause.
The Biblical flood narrative represents the story of the greatest incision in world history. The events described in Genesis 6:5-9:17 are reported in the same matter-of-fact language as the remainder of the book of Genesis (1) and thus claim to be understood in its plain and literal sense. The Genesis flood story is neither legend (2) nor myth (3) and neither parable, allegory nor symbol (4). It is written in the straightforward genre of historical narrative in prose style (5). For the purpose of the following discussion the entire flood narrative of Genesis 6:5-9:17 is considered as a literary unity (6) of a single account of the flood (7).
I. THE ISSUE
There are two conflicting schools of interpretation
regarding the extent of the Genesis flood. Traditionally the Biblical flood
narrative has been understood to refer to a universal catastrophe of world-wide
dimensions (8). The rise of uniformitarian evolutionism has been a primary
catalyst in challenging the traditional position. On the basis of considerations
from the natural sciences, commentators and interpreters began to seek for a
limited flood theory or a relative view of the Genesis flood. H. E. Ryle in his
commentary on Genesis written in 1914 states forthrightly, "Geology has shown
that no such universal Deluge has ever occurred" (9). Significant in this
assessment is the acknowledgment that on the one hand the Biblical picture
portrays a "universal Deluge" which is not denied and on the other hand
"geological science has demonstrated that a Flood has never simultaneously
covered the whole surface of the globe . . ." (10). Ryle resolves
this conflict by suggesting that the Genesis flood should be understood as a
"symbol," (11) i.e. as a non-historical event which teaches a great theological
truth without being rooted in an actual universal event.
From our own time comes the approach of the liberal Catholic scholar C. Schedl
who has just published a multivolume History of the Old Testament (1973).
His discussion of the extent of the flood is primarily concerned with "the
geographical extent of the flood" which in the view of the writer of Genesis
must be understood in terms of "the geographical universality of the flood"
(12). Schedl quickly points out that "particularly with the paleontological
investigation of the earth's crust, a growing tide of reflection has been
mounting against the geographical universality of the flood" (13). On the basis
of the evidences from the natural sciences, Schedl argues that the Biblical
narrator formulated "the flood narrative, just as the creation narrative, [from]
the Ancient Near Eastern picture of the world . . ." (14). What
he means to say is that since the "picture of the world" was limited in its
geographical scope, the geographical universality of the flood is limited to
that same picture of the world. Since Schedl argues for the limited geographical
picture of the world for the flood on the basis of that of creation, a logical
conclusion would be that there was also a geographically limited creation
described in the creation account (15). This is, however, what neither Schedl
nor other critical scholars think is conceivable. The approach outlined in this
paragraph considers the Genesis flood story limited in geographical scope on the
basis of the historically conditioned limitation of the world view of ancient
Near Eastern man. Biblical writers are considered to reflect the limitations of
their pagan predecessors and contemporaries.
The majority
of scholars of the liberal critical school maintain however that Genesis indeed
described a flood of world-wide dimensions, one that is to be understood in
terms of global geographical extent (16). This should, of course, not be
understood to imply that they actually accept as historical fact the Genesis
description. Although liberal critical scholars in general recognize that the
Genesis picture is that of a universal flood of global scope, they are also
united in their view that this picture can no longer be understood in a literal
sense. The non-literal (mythic, legendary, parabolical, symbolic, theological)
understanding is based almost exclusively upon geological and anthropological
consideration of modern times. The recent article in the well-known
Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible states, "The belief in a deluge
covering the whole earth and destroying all men and animals except those
preserved in an ark has largely been given up" (17). Scholars of the liberal
critical school readily point out that the narrator of the universal flood
picture indeed believed what he wrote.
The problem
accordingly is not one primarily of the Biblical text but one of critical and
liberal scholarship. Langdon B. Gilkey, himself belonging to the liberal school
of scholars, writes incisively of modern scholarship that it is "half liberal
and modern on the one hand, and half Biblical and orthodox on the other, i.e.
its world view or cosmology is modern while its theological language is Biblical
and orthodox" (18). He states "What has happened is clear: because of our modern
cosmology, we have stripped what we regard as 'the Biblical point of view' of
all its wonders and voices . . . we have rejected as invalid all the
innumerable cases of God's acting and speaking" (19). This is a most revealing
self-analysis. He also uncovers why the liberal critical school arrives at its
understanding of the Biblical text. "First there is the job of stating what the
Biblical writers meant to say, a statement couched in the Bible's own terms,
cosmological, historical, and theological" (20). Often critical scholars seek to
understand Bible writers on their own terms; if the Biblical picture is in
conflict with the modern understanding of the world and man, then the Biblical
view is reinterpreted in such a way so as to remove its conflict with that of
the modern conception.
There is a great number of scholars
who do not follow the hermeneutical categories of critical Biblical scholarship.
A common feature of those who are conservative or evangelical in their
theological outlook is their high esteem of Biblical authority and inspiration.
This does not allow them to treat lightly the point of view of the Biblical
writer because he reveals divine truth and not just ancient religious points of
view. Biblical statements are authoritative and binding for faith. On the basis
of this common starting-point two avenues are open when there is a conflict
between a modern understanding of natural phenomena and a Biblical truth. Let us
consider the two avenues of conservative/evangelical
scholars.
One school of thought more or less accepts the
uniformitarian interpretation of geological and other natural phenomena (21) and
the modern evolutionary concept of anthropology (22) seeking a harmonization by
interpreting the flood narrative in Genesis in non-universal terms (23). In
other words this school of thought more or less shares with liberal critical
scholarship the modern, evolutionary interpretation of natural phenomena. This
pre-understanding leads them to read the Biblical writer in such a way that any
conflict with their preconceived ideas is avoided. From the hermeneutical
perspective it is evident that the modern pre-understanding serves as a key for
the interpretation of Biblical data. This approach operates obviously with an
external key which is designed to unlock Scripture. The question of what the
Biblical writer actually meant to say recedes into the background if it is not
indeed completely disregarded in order to establish harmony between the modern
pre-understanding and the Biblical data. This approach implies that contextual
and internal considerations are submerged or even sacrificed (24). In the final
analysis this approach does not allow that the inspired revelation of Scripture
has any formative function in the interpretation of the book of
nature.
The other school of thought among
conservative/evangelical scholars maintains that an external principle and
approach to Biblical interpretation built on modern pre-understanding robs the
Biblical data of being interpreted objectively. It seeks to be as sensitive as
possible to both the issues for faith in the area of nature and its
interpretation and the area of Biblical revelation and its own interpretation.
It attempts to control external influences on Biblical interpretation and seeks
to operate in terms of the Biblical context. The modern pre-understanding is
thus opened to questions concerning its premises and a prioris. A new
interpretation of natural data is sought on the basis of Biblical creationism
and catastrophism which is in conflict with scientific uniformitarianism
(25).
In one aspect this approach is akin to that of the
critical school's attempt to grasp what the Bible writer meant to say. This is
done by paying most careful attention to the terms, phrases, idioms,
expressions, etc., which the writers employed and to understand these within
their own linguistic and contextual connections. This means to refuse to let
external notions influence what a Bible writer actually meant to say. He is
allowed to speak for himself which means that although he is a man of his own
time, culture, and language, he nevertheless was able to express correctly and
authoritatively the divinely revealed truth committed to him. No Bible writer
must be interpreted by means of an ancient or modern world view. He must be
allowed to speak for himself. The unique nature of the inspired Biblical
testimony makes it imperative that only other inspired writings can have a
determinative bearing on Biblical truth.
The discussion of
these basic issues has set the stage for our inquiry with regard to the Biblical
evidence for the question of the extent of the flood in the witness of the
Bible. This investigation is carried out in order to determine on the basis of
the witness of the Bible whether or not the flood is depicted as a world-wide
catastrophe or whether it is of limited geographical extent.
II. THE BIBLICAL WITNESS
A. The Matter of Terminology
1. The Term "Earth." In the announcement of the
flood it is stated "God saw the earth" (Genesis 6:12) and the "earth was corrupt
in God's sight" (6:11), the "earth was filled with violence" (6:11, 13). God
decreed to "destroy them [all flesh] with the earth" (6:13) by bringing a flood
of waters "upon the earth" (6:17). The aim of the flood is that "everything that
is on earth shall die" (6:17). The term "earth" occurs by itself or in the
phrases "upon the face of all the earth" (7:3; 8:9) a total of 46 times (26) in
Genesis 6:5-9:17. The Hebrew term employed in all of these instances is
Éeres.The Septuagint translates
this term consistently with the Greek equivalent ge, "earth" (27). The English
authorized versions (English Revised Version, American Revised Version, Revised
Standard Version, New Jewish Version, Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible, New
American Bible) translated the Hebrew term consistently with "earth" with the
exception of the New English Bible which renders Éeres in two instances with "world"
(6:11, 12). It is recognized that the term "earth" gives the flood narrative a
universal outlook.
Supporters of the local flood theory
have pointed out that the Hebrew term Éeres can mean "land" so that we
should read "land" and "all the land" respectively instead of "earth" (28). It
is entirely correct to recognize that the term Éeres does not always or even in
the majority of its 2504 usages (29) in the Old Testament mean "earth" in a
global or world-wide sense. Space does not permit a detailed investigation of
the ranges of meaning of Éeres, the noun which ranks as
number four in frequency of usage in the Old Testament.
The formula "heaven and earth" which is employed 41 times in the Old Testament
(30) and the sequence "earth and heaven" (6 times [31]) is the standard Hebrew
expression for the totality of the world made up of the globe ("earth") and the
surrounding atmospheric heavens ("heaven"). It is the Hebrew surrogate for the
term "world" (Greek kosmos) for which the Hebrew had no single
expression.
It is by no means clear why the translation
"land" with its geographical and political limitations should be the
meaning in the flood narrative. Why could it not be the physical usage of
Éeres
in the sense of "ground" upon which man stands (Genesis 24:52; Exodus 8:12, 13;
Amos 3:5; 9:9; Ezekiel 28:17; Psalm 147:6; etc.) or the "dry land" in contrast
to the water (Genesis 1:10)? Is it because the former is too narrow for a local
flood theory and the latter too broad? Is the choice made on the basis of what
fits best a given preconceived hypothesis? We agree whole-heartedly with F. A.
Filby, who strongly supports a local flood theory, in his emphasis "that the
meaning [of Éeres] must be determined by the
context" (32). Indeed we firmly support the notion that in understanding
correctly the terminology of the Genesis flood narrative one must pay most
careful attention to the context and situation of the narrative within the
framework of Genesis and the whole Bible. Of equal importance are grammatical
and syntactical relationships. If the context is considered in determining the
meaning of the terminology in the Genesis flood narrative, then it does not
matter whether Éeres "has more often a limited
meaning than a universal one" (33). The quantitative argument has no force
because each usage is determined by its own context. Let us proceed on the basis
of contextual considerations which permits the text to speak for itself and
guards against uncontrolled and arbitrary interpretations.
Proof-texts cited in support of the local flood theory such as "the land of
Shinar" (Genesis 10:10) (34), "the whole land of Havilah" (Genesis 2:11), "the
whole land of Cush" (Genesis 2:13), "the land of Nod" (Genesis 4:16), "the land
of Canaan" (Genesis 11:31), Egypt (Genesis 13:10), Philistia (Genesis 21:34),
Moriah (Genesis 22:2) (35), have in each case the term
Éeres
employed in a limited geographical or political sense. That these texts have no
bearing whatever on the meaning of the term Éeres in the Genesis flood
narrative is evident from the following consideration: In each of these examples
(and they could be multiplied many times over) the term
Éeres
is followed by a genitive which contextually limits Éeres to a geographical area or
political territory. None of the 46 usages of Éeres in the Genesis flood
narrative is ever followed by a genitive and thus is not parallel or analogous
to the usage of Éeres in the texts cited by
supporters of the local flood theory. In other words, the context of each of the
above examples cited in support of the local flood theory indicates without
doubt that Éeres has a limited meaning. This
kind of contextual indication must always be present for a limited geographical
meaning of Éeres (36). Since it is absent from
the usages in the flood story the universal meaning of
Éeres
remains firmly supported.
2. The Phrase "the Face of
all the Earth." In two instances the flood story adds the adjective "all"
(kol) to the noun "earth"
(Éeres). Noah is commanded to take
seven pairs of all clean animals and birds and a pair of unclean animals into
the ark "to keep their kind alive upon the face of all the earth" (Genesis 7:3;
cf. 8:9). The idea of "all the earth" (kol-haÉares) is undoubtedly
universalistic. It is argued that "all the earth" need not be understood in a
strictly literal sense because there are passages in which "a universal meaning
. . . is modified by the context" (37). Among the texts cited in favor
of a limited interpretation of "all the earth" are Exodus 10:5, 15; Numbers
22:5, 11; 1 Kings 4:34; 10:24; 2 Chronicles 36:23 and Genesis 41:57: "Moreover,
all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was
severe over all the earth" (Revised Standard Version). Do these texts, which
employ according to their context the phrase "all the earth" (kol-haÉares) in the sense of "the whole
land," imply that this limited idea must be the meaning of this phrase in the
flood story or other parts of Scripture? If "all the earth" should always mean
"the whole land," then the Lord's claim that "all the earth is mine" (Exodus
19:5) would mean not more than merely a local deity's claim of possession of
only "the whole land" as pagan gods claimed. Obviously the context of Exodus
19:5 demands the universal meaning of "all the earth" which is God's. When the
Lord says "there is none like me in all the earth" (Exodus 9:16), He means the
entire globe and not a local country (38). Again we must affirm that the context
must be allowed to determine the meaning of "all the earth" each time it
appears. It is unsound hermeneutically to read indiscriminately from one context
to another. Furthermore, the actual phrase in Genesis 7:3 and 8:9 is "the face
of all the earth." This is the phrase that needs further
attention.
What is the contextual meaning of "all the
earth" in the flood story? At the opening of the Genesis flood narrative the
impending destruction is linked explicitly to the sinfulness of man whom the
Lord had "made" (Genesis 6:5) and "created" (v. 6). "The connection between
Creation and the Flood is a very real one . . ." (39). God made
man sinless but now he is so sinful that he must be destroyed. Man was created
to have dominion over all creatures and "over all the earth" (kol-haÉares, Genesis 1:26) which is the
entire globe and, not just the "dry land" (Genesis 1:10), because his dominion
includes the creatures on land and "the fish of the sea" (Genesis 1:26). Man and
beast have become so corrupt that the appointed survivor Noah is instructed to
take a limited number of land creatures and birds on board the ark "to keep
their kind alive upon the face of all the earth" (Genesis 7:3). This explicit
contextual link between creation and flood is a clear indication that "all the
earth" in Genesis 7:3 and 8:9 has more than a local and limited meaning
(40).
Inasmuch as the phrase in Genesis 7:3 and 8:9 is
"the face of all the earth" it appears that there is a further qualification
through the addition of the expression "the face of" (penê).
It is striking that the identical Hebrew phrase rendered in English as "the face
of all the earth" is used for the first time in the creation narrative. In
Genesis 1:29 God informs man, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding
seed which is upon the face of all the earth . . . ." Here "the
face of all the earth," with "the face of" clearly being a metaphorical
expression (41), refers to the "surface" (42) of the "dry land" (Genesis 7:22).
After the two instances in the flood narrative, the same phrase appears for the
last time in Genesis in the story of the Tower of Babel (43) where man is
dispersed by God "upon the face of all the earth" (Genesis 11:4, 8, 9) which is
a scattering over the whole world (44). The evident universal usage of this
phrase in the book of Genesis supports the universal view of this phrase in the
Genesis flood story. "Earth" or "the face of all the earth" in the flood story
is in each instance universal in meaning.
It may be
parenthetically inserted that the non-universal phrase concerning the famine
which was spread "over all the face of the earth" (Genesis 41:56) has a subtle
difference in word order and is thus not identical in meaning to the phrase used
in Genesis 1:29; 7:3; 8:9; 11:4, 8 , 9 as linguistic usage and context indicate.
On the basis of context and style Genesis 41:56 does not do away with the
universal meaning (45) of the phrase "the face of all the earth" in the flood
narrative (Genesis 7:3; 8:9) (46).
The question has been
raised why the Genesis flood story does not employ the Hebrew term tebel (47) which means "dry land" (48)
or "world" (49) in the sense of "continents" (50). This term appears 39 times in
the Old Testament (51) but never in Genesis or the other books of Moses. The
reason why this term is not employed lies in the fact that tebel appears only in poetic texts
whereas the flood narrative is prose. Therefore the lack of this universalistic
term of the flood narrative does in no sense imply a non-universalistic meaning
for the term "earth." This argument from silence which does not even consider
the contextual and poetic usage of a term is best to be dispensed
with.
3. The Phrase "Face of the Ground." The
phrase "face of the ground" (penê haÉadamah) appears five times in the
Genesis flood story in a variety of connections. God "will blot out man whom I
have created from the face of the ground" (Genesis 7:4). After "everything on
the dry land (52) in whose nostrils was the breath of life died" (Genesis 7:22),
it is stated that "he blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of
the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the air; they were
blotted out from the earth" (v. 23). It should be observed that in verse 23 the
phrase "face of the ground" is parallel in thought to "the earth" in the same
passage. Another parallelism is found between "the waters had subsided from the
face of the ground" (Genesis 8:8) and "the waters were still on the face of all
the earth" (v. 9). The third parallelism appears between the phrase "the waters
were dried from off the earth" (v. 13b) and the statement "the face of the
ground was dry" (v. 13c). These usages and their parallelism indicate that "face
of the ground" is an expression which means the surface of the dry land in its
most universal sense.
The observation that the extent of
"ground" (Éadamah) would be determined by the term
"earth" (Éeres), which is made by some
supporters of the local flood theory (53), is entirely correct. The explicit
parallelism ("face of the ground" = "earth" 7:23; 8:8f.; 8:13) demands such an
interpretation. We have already seen that "earth" and "face of all the earth"
points into a single direction, namely the entire surface of the global mass of
land.
It is again striking that the expression "face of
the ground" is employed for the first time in the creation narrative which has
an undeniable universal emphasis. According to Genesis 2:6 "a mist (54) went up
from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground." The "face of the
ground" is the "surface" (55) (so also New American Bible, New English Bible,
Anchor Bible) of the dry land or ground (56). The Hebrew term translated
"ground" (Éadamah) appears in the Old Testament
225 times (57) with the basic meaning of "ground, soil" (58). The most universal
usage of Éadamah is "earth" (59). It can also
mean the "ground" upon which man stands (60) which can separate (61) and which
carries the creeping things (Genesis 1:25; 2:6) and as the term "earth" and
"face of all the earth" (Genesis 7:23; 8:8-9, 13). There is no contextual
indication whatever for a limited usage (64). We must "read the [flood] account
whole-heartedly in its own terms" (65).
4. The Phrase
"All Flesh." The 13 usages of the expression "all flesh" in the flood story
(66) with the express notation that God will "make an end of all flesh" (6:13),
"destroy all flesh" (6:17), and the statement of the subsequent fact that "all
flesh died" (7:21f.) gives the unmistakable impression of universal destruction.
B. Ramm has suggested that "all does not mean every last one in
all of its usages" (67). It is entirely correct that "all" (kol) which is employed in the Hebrew
Old Testament 5404 times (68) does not always express totality. But it should be
remembered that its basic meaning is "totality" (69) and that it is always
expressive of totality with rare exceptions where the individual context
provides a clear indication. If this were not so, then grand confusion would
result because the word "all" would then never mean "all" but something less
than "all," something less than totality.
With regard to
the formula "all flesh" a syntactical consideration does not even leave it an
"open question" (70) whether it is "all" in a restrictive sense or in the sense
of totality. The formula "all flesh" in the Hebrew appears as a genitival
construction kol-basar. If kol ("all") appears
in construction before an indeterminate (i.e. without article or possessive
suffix) noun (in our case "flesh"), then the meaning is totality (71), i.e.
"all flesh" in the sense of "all men or all living
creatures" (72). In one of the 13 usages in the flood narrative the
kol appears before a determinate noun, i.e. kol-habasar "all the flesh" . (7:15) (73).
In such a case "kol . . . expresses unity" (74) and "entirety" (75). This
same rule of Hebrew syntax applies to the determinate genitival construction
"all the earth" (kol-haÉares) in Genesis 7:3 and 8:9 which
means "the whole earth" (76) in its entirety. Inasmuch as "all (the) flesh" in
the Genesis flood story includes both man and animals (77) as has been
shown in detail above, there can be no doubt about the fact that the destruction
of "all (the) flesh" refers to the destruction of men and animals on land and in
the air in their totality and entirety. This fact is underlined by the explicit
statement that "only Noah was left, and those [members of his family and land
animals and birds] that were with him in the ark" (7:23). "These alone were left
after the universal destruction," states U. Cassuto (78) quite
appropriately.
5. The Phrase "Every Living Thing."
Another expression of totality is "every living thing" (kol-hahay) which appears in Genesis 6:19
where "every living thing of all flesh" is to be brought into the ark by pairs
(79). This expression encompasses birds, animals, and creeping things (v. 20).
Here again kol ("all") is followed by a determinate noun which indicates
that kol "has the meaning of the entirety, i.e. all, the
whole" (80).
The translation "every living thing" in
the text of Genesis 7:23, "He blotted out every living thing that was upon the
face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the air,"
is expressive of the same threefold division of creatures as in 6:9 but also
includes man. The Hebrew phrase, however, is not identical to the one in 6:19
but to the one in 7:4: "and I will blot out every living thing that I have made
from the face of the ground." In 7:4, 23 the phrase is
kol-hayecûm. The term yeqûm is used aside
from the two usages here only once more in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 11:6).
Its meaning is "existence," (81) "living being" (82) or "what is living" (83).
Since kol ("all") is again determinate the idea expressed is that God
blotted out "all existence" in their entirety of what was living of living
beings from the face of the whole earth with the flood waters. There is hardly
any stronger way in the Hebrew to emphasize total destruction of "all existence"
of human and animal life on earth than the way it has been expressed. The writer
of the Genesis flood story employed terminology, formulae, and syntactical
structures of the type that could not be more emphatic and explicit in
expressing his concept of a universal, world-wide flood.
6. The Phrase "Under the Whole Heaven." The phrase "under the whole
heaven" (tahat kol-haššamayim) in Genesis 7:19, "and the
waters prevailed so mightily upon the earth that all the high mountains under
the whole heaven were covered," "may not be so easily disposed of" (84), says G.
L. Archer, a supporter of the local flood theory. The famous commentator F.
Delitzsch has stated, "But if the water covered 'all the high hills under the
whole heaven,' this clearly indicates the universality of the flood" (85). The
critical scholar J. Skinner comments that "7:19, 20 not only asserts its [the
flood's] universality, but so to speak proves it, by giving the exact height of
the waters above the highest mountains" (86).
Most
supporters of the local flood theory do not discuss the phrase "under the whole
heaven." But those who attempt to come to grips with this serious difficulty for
their hypothesis point out that "heaven" (šamayim) "can mean 'sky', or the
visible part of heaven within the horizon (e.g. 1 Kings xviii.45)" (87). 1 Kings
18:45 reads, "And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind,
and there was a great rain." The context here clearly indicates that "heavens"
means sky. But the context of Genesis 7:19 is entirely different! In addition
the syntactical usage of "heaven" in both passages is entirely different. Dare
we neglect the specific usage of a term? Certainly not. While in 1 Kings 18:45
(šamayim ("heavens") appears by itself,
in Genesis 7:19 kol ("all") is in construct state to the determinate
(i.e. with article) noun šamayim. It has been shown several
times before that this syntactical relationship expresses totality and entirety.
This is to say that the waters submerged all the high mountains of the totality
and in the entirety under the atmospheric heavens. The way it is written in the
Hebrew excludes any local or limited concept of "heavens." The phrase "under the
whole heaven" indeed clearly asserts the universality of the
flood.
It has been objected that if we understand the
phrase that "all the high mountains" were covered with the flood waters at
elevations above that of Mt. Everest that the "rarified atmosphere" would
"render all but a few creatures insensible in a very few moments for lack of
oxygen" (89). To this it has been responded that "all such concerns are
misplaced, for it is an elementary fact that atmospheric pressure depends on
elevation relative to sea level" (90). On the other hand, there is no Biblical
evidence for Mt. Everest or other high mountains to have existed at the time of
the flood and consequently it is not necessary to "assert that the waters
mounted to a depth of six miles" (91).
Let us briefly
summarize. The Genesis flood narrative provides ample evidence of being an
account which is to be understood as a historical narrative in prose style. It
expects to be taken literally. There is a consistent and overwhelming amount of
terminology and formulae such as the frequent usages of "earth" and "all the
earth," "the face of the ground," "the dry land," "all flesh," "under the whole
heaven," which on the basis of context and syntax has uniformly indicated that
the flood story wants to be understood in a universal sense: the waters
destroyed all human and animal plus bird life on the entire land mass of the
globe. To read it otherwise means to force a meaning on the carefully written
and specific syntactical constructions of the original language which the text
itself rejects. This universal emphasis with its picture of a world-wide flood
finds additional supports from other considerations.
B. The Flood and the History of Beginnings
1. Genealogies. The universality of the flood is to
be inferred also from the parallelism of antediluvian and postdiluvian
genealogical lines. The whole antediluvian world is populated from the offspring
of Adam, namely Cain (Genesis 4:17-24) and Seth (4:25-26) in the great
genealogical list of Genesis 5:1-31. As Adam is in the Bible's view the father
of pre-flood man, so Noah is the father of post-flood man. As from Adam's sons
the whole world was populated, so from Noah's sons the entire earth is once more
populated. This is the clear claim of the postdiluvian genealogical list called
the Table of Nations of Genesis 10:1-32. From Noah's sons arose the nations of
the world: ". . . and from these the nations spread abroad on the
earth after the flood" (Genesis 10:32). The experience of the Tower of Babel
spreads them across the entire globe (Genesis 11:1-9).
2. Blessings. We have noted frequent allusions in terminology and thought
to the creation story. Another important aspect indicating the universality of
the flood from which Noah and his family are the only human survivors (Genesis
7:23) concerns the blessing. After man had been created as male and female, as
the pinnacle of creation, God bestows His divine blessing upon him by saying,
"Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth . . ." (Genesis
1:28). On the basis of this charge the antediluvian world is populated with
human beings (92). These very words are spoken also to the survivors of the
destructive flood: "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, 'Be
fruitful and multiply and fill the earth'" (Genesis 9:1). As prediluvian man
"had" his beginning with Adam, so postdiluvian man has his beginning with Noah.
Man after creation and after the flood receives the same divine blessing. With
both there is a new beginning. The corollary of the fact that with first man the
prediluvian world is populated is the fact that with man surviving the flood the
postdiluvian world is populated anew. In this example of blessing we note again
that the focus of the first eleven chapters of Genesis including the flood story
is the entire world in its global dimension and not a limited geographical
area.
3. Covenant. In making a covenant with Noah,
"your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you,
the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you" (Genesis 9:9-10),
God pledges unconditionally that "never again shall all flesh be cut off by the
waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the
earth" (v. 11). Not only is the covenant itself of a universal nature valid in
perpetuity for "all flesh" saved in the ark, but the covenant sign in the form
of the rainbow is universal (v. 12-17). It is a world-wide witness to the
world-wide flood and a world-wide witness that "the waters shall never again
become a flood to destroy all flesh" (v. 15). If there had been a limited flood,
then there would have had to be a limited covenant and covenant sign. The
universality of both the covenant and the rainbow witnesses to the universality
of the flood.
III. CONCLUSION
Our investigation of the term "earth" and the phrases "the
face of all the earth," "face of the ground," "all flesh," "every living thing,"
and "under the whole heaven" has consistently shown that this is universalistic
language pointing into a single direction of a flood of global scope. Indeed the
writer of the Genesis flood story had no means at his disposal to make this more
explicit than he actually did. Context and syntax uniformly indicated that the
writer wished to convey the picture of a world-wide flood which covered the
entire antediluvian land masses which destroyed all human, animal and bird life
that existed on them.
Additional supports for the
universal concept of the flood offered themselves in the parallelism of
antediluvian and postdiluvian genealogies, in the blessings spoken by God over
first man on earth and over man surviving the flood, and in the universal
covenant and the world-wide covenant sign in the form of the
rainbow.
In conclusion we cannot refrain from referring to
the typological analogy of a world-wide flood of which the apostle Peter spoke.
His inspired words build on the world-wide destruction of the antediluvian world
by water. The next universal destruction of the world will be by fire. "The
world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same
word the heavens and the earth that now exist have been stored up for fire,
being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men" (2 Peter
3:6-7). God will again interrupt the steady rhythm of the world; He will again
carry out what He has foretold.
FOOTNOTES