Was the Flood literally global?

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

A friend has e-mailed the following:

 

 

“…. A couple of matters related to one of my classes last night:

 

1. Reason(s) that we hold that the Flood was literally global.

 

1. I was told many years ago that there had never been rain until the Flood and that people were at first delighted and amazed at what they were seeing.

 

Can you help me with either of these? ….”

 

 

My response: A ‘literally global’ Noachic Flood is what I used firmly to believe, as well as the notion that rain was formerly unknown to the antediluvians.

But I don’t anymore.

 

And I feel sorry and embarrassed, now, for those, such as ‘Creationists’ with their ‘Creation Science’, who hold to 1) in particular, “the Flood was literally global”.

Why?

Because, as I see it, they are reading the Bible in a modern language, say English, with a modern ‘scientific’ - even to a great extent a pseudo-scientific - mentality, instead of in a way that gives due consideration to the meaning of the language used by the ancient (not modern) scribes with those scribes’ intended meanings.

 

Previously I have quoted Tim Martin on the modern tendency to reduce everything to science – and one could probably add, to numbers and statistics. Tim Martin has actually called ‘Creation Science’ “a right-wing form of modernism”: http://planetpreterist.com/content/beyond-creation-science-how-preterism-refutes-global-flood-and-impacts-genesis-debate-%E2%80%93-par-5

 

We live in a world dominated by materialism and scientism. The reduction of every aspect of life to “science” has corrupted the soul of Western Civilization. This is one key to understanding the related popularity of both futurism and Creation Science. They are both perfectly compatible with the scientistic spirit of the modern age. In fact, dispensational futurism, at least, is impossible apart from it. Christians aid this scientistic syncretism through Creation Science methods of reading Scripture. They do it by reducing even the language of the Bible to the “scientific.”^[1]

Viewed in this light it is not difficult to see that Creation Science ideology is a right-wing form of modernism. Conrad Hyers puts it this way:

 

Even if evolution is only a scientific theory of interpretation posing as scientific fact, as the [young-earth] creationists argue, [young-earth] creationism is only a religious theory of biblical interpretation posing as biblical fact. To add to the problem, it is a religious theory of biblical interpretation which is heavily influenced by modern scientific, historical, and technological concerns. It is, therefore, essentially modernistic even though claiming to be truly conservative.[2]

 

Catholics (those tending to be of the conservative variety) who have followed Creationism over the years would be well aware that mainstream Catholic scholars have shown virtually no interest whatsoever in its teachings, and that official Catholic documents never seem to support Creation Science.

Why might this be so?

Surely Creation Science, teaching a belief in God the Creator of all things, and vehemently defending the inerrancy of the Sacred Scriptures, ought to be warmly welcomed by the Church as an invaluable ally.

On the other hand, the God-fearing are not always right in their estimations, no matter how sincere, and they may need to be corrected.

 

Consider Our Lord’s constant corrections of good people along the lines of:

 

‘You have heard it said … but I tell you’

(e. g. Matthew 5:21-22).

 

‘Creationists’ will take biblical phrases such as “the whole earth”, or “all flesh”, and bestow upon these a universal or global status – intending the entire globe.

 

At least they do so when it suits them, such as in the case of the Flood or Babel.

For they are not consistent. If they were they would have the Queen of the South, who came “from the ends of the earth” (Matthew 12:42), making her way northwards from somewhere in the southern hemisphere.

And how do they account for the fact that, at Pentecost, people “from every nation under heaven” are actually listed as being inhabitants of only a very small part of the global world – basically, Rome, Crete, and Egypt, through Syria and Turkey, to Mesopotamia? (Acts 2:5-11):

  

Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?  Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God’.

 

The misinterpretation of the ancient texts by modern (say, Western) minds in regard to the Flood is well explained in the following piece by Rich Deem:

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/localflood.html

 

The Genesis Flood
Why the Bible Says It Must be Local

Many Christians maintain that the Bible says that the flood account of Genesis requires an interpretation that states that the waters of the flood covered the entire earth. If you read our English Bibles, you will probably come to this conclusion if you don't read the text too closely and if you fail to consider the rest of your Bible. Like most other Genesis stories, the flood account is found in more places than just Genesis. If you read the sidebar, you will discover that Psalm 104 directly eliminates any possibility of the flood being global (see Psalm 104-9 - Does it refer to the Original Creation or the Flood?). In order to accept a global flood, you must reject Psalm 104 and the inerrancy of the Bible. If you like to solve mysteries on your own, you might want to read the flood account first and find the biblical basis for a local flood.

The Bible's other creation passages eliminate the possibility of a global flood

The concept of a global Genesis flood can be easily eliminated from a plain reading of Psalm 104,¹ which is known as the "creation psalm." Psalm 104 describes the creation of the earth in the same order as that seen in Genesis 1 (with a few more details added). It begins with an expanding universe model (reminiscent of the Big Bang) (verse 2,¹ parallel to Genesis 1:1). It next describes the formation of a stable water cycle (verses 3-5,¹ parallel to Genesis 1:6-8). The earth is then described as a planet completely covered with water (verse 6, parallel to Genesis 1:9). God then causes the dry land to appear (verses 7-8,¹ parallel to Genesis 1:9-10). The verse that eliminates a global flood follows: "You set a boundary they [the waters] cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth." (Psalm 104:9)¹ Obviously, if the waters never again covered the earth, then the flood must have been local. Psalm 104 is just one of several creation passages that indicate that God prevented the seas from covering the entire earth.² An integration of all flood and creation passages clearly indicates that the Genesis flood was local in geographic extent.

The Bible says water covered the whole earth... Really?

When you read an English translation of the biblical account of the flood, you will undoubtedly notice many words and verses that seem to suggest that the waters covered all of planet earth.³ However, one should note that today we look at everything from a global perspective, whereas the Bible nearly always refers to local geography. You may not be able to determine this fact from our English translations, so we will look at the original Hebrew, which is the word of God. The Hebrew words which are translated as "whole earth" or "all the earth" are kol (Strong's number H3605), which means "all," and erets (Strong's number H776), which means "earth," "land," "country," or "ground."⁴ We don't need to look very far in Genesis (Genesis 2) before we find the Hebrew words kol erets. ….

[End of quote]

 

‘Creationists’, having arrived at their completely artificial - and quite laughable, if they weren’t so serious - interpretations of the Bible, will then insist upon one’s adhering to their peculiar ‘biblical’ Weltanschauung as behoving Christians dedicated to the preservation of scriptural inerrancy.

 

Well, I would suggest that no one would have been more surprised than Noah (and his family) to learn that he had once ridden out a global Flood in a sea-going vessel the size of the Queen Mary!

 

As to point 2) ‘there had never been rain until the Flood’, it has no solid biblical support as far as I can tell.

And even some ‘Creationists’ now seem to have dropped this idea. For example: https://answersingenesis.org/creationism/arguments-to-avoid/was-there-no-rain-before-the-flood/

 

Was There No Rain Before the Flood?

 

Some Christians claim that there was no rain before the Flood;

however, as Dr. Tommy Mitchell shows us,

a close examination of Scripture does not bear this out.

 

….

 

Conclusion

 

While we cannot prove that there was rain before the Flood, to insist that there was not (and even to deride those who think otherwise) stretches Scripture beyond what it actually says. ….

Fifty years after release, ‘Humanae Vitae’ praised as prophetic encyclical





WASHINGTON, D.C.- Surrounding the 1968 release of Humanae Vitae (“Of Human Life”) was the cultural context of the sexual revolution and a widespread fear about overpopulation following World War II, said Donald Critchlow, a professor of history at Arizona State University.

At the time, there were movements in support of eugenics, abortion rights, and sterilizations in an attempt to curb population growth, Critchlow told an audience at The Catholic University of America April 5.

Those who thought voluntary family planning was not enough proposed other, more coercive ideas, such as requiring couples to get a license to have a child or requiring sterilization for couples with more than five children, he added.

Critchlow was one of several speakers at a 50th anniversary symposium on Blessed Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae April 4-6 hosted by Catholic University. Keynotes and a number of workshop sessions examined the teaching and legacy of the document on the regulation of birth issued July 25, 1968.

The symposium was titled “Embracing God’s Vision for Marriage, Love and Life,” and brought together experts on a variety of topics related to the encyclical’s teachings on human sexuality and family life.

In a session exploring the historical context of the times when the encyclical was released, Critchlow noted that prior to the drafting of Humanae Vitae, a commission was appointed to give suggestions for the Catholic Church’s response to new forms of contraception.

The majority of the people on the commission recommended that the use of the birth control pill should be accepted and Church teaching on the subject should be changed.

Paul VI rejected the commission’s report and in Humanae Vitae affirmed the Church’s teaching on the sanctity of human life and its opposition to artificial contraception. In the document, the pope warned of the harm that widespread use of contraception would cause in society, such as lowering of moral standards, marital infidelity, less respect for women, and the government’s ability to use different methods to regulate life and death.

Critchlow said many priests and laypeople, particularly in the United States, dissented from this teaching. Students and faculty went on strike at The Catholic University of America after the board of trustees denied the tenure of a professor, Father Charles E. Curran, who publicly disagreed with the encyclical’s teaching. Cardinal Patrick O’Boyle disciplined 39 priests in the Archdiocese of Washington for their dissent from the document. Thousands of scientists wrote a petition published in The New York Times that criticized the encyclical.

In his homily for the symposium’s closing Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception April 6, Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington recalled that he had been given his first assignment as a priest just a year before the encyclical’s release.

“It was immediately met with widespread dissent and vocal opposition,” he said. “I was surprised to see such vehement rejection.”

Wuerl also recalled the quick action on the part of what was then the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in writing a pastoral letter to support and explain the encyclical after it had been issued. The NCCB had as its president then-Pittsburgh Bishop John J. Wright, for whom the future Wuerl was serving as priest-secretary.

During that time, Wuerl said he learned about the importance of the teaching role of the pope as the successor of Peter.

“We accept and follow the teaching of the Roman pontiff because it is true,” said Wuerl. “We know it is true because of the authority with which he teaches it.”

While historians note that Humanae Vitae “constitutes a high-water mark in silent lack of reception on the part of the faithful,” Wuerl said, “we take confidence in the reminder that a lack of reception of the teaching does not negate its truth.”

Indeed, throughout the anniversary symposium, people continually praised the prophetic message of the document, which still “stands as a profound and affirmative” defense of traditional values and family life, said Critchlow.

“In the end, what Humanae Vitae proved was to be prophetic in its warnings of the breakdown of family and the depersonalization of sexual acts we see today in America,” Critchlow added.

Noting Pope Francis’s call to be in touch with realities people are facing in their daily lives, Mary Eberstadt, an author and speaker on issues of American culture, spoke about how the sexual revolution and the teachings of Humanae Vitae fit into that reality.

“The promise for sex on demand without restraint may be the biggest temptation humanity has been faced with,” she said.

In the face of that temptation, the teachings of Humanae Vitae are difficult, “but to confuse hard (teachings) with wrong is an elementary error,” said Eberstadt.

“If we are truly to lean into reality as Pope Francis has asked us to do … there is only one conclusion … the most globally reviled and widely misunderstood document … is also the most explanatory and prophetic of our era,” she added.

While many proponents of contraception support it as a way to reduce the number of abortions, Eberstadt said it is now “clear beyond a reasonable doubt that contraception also led to an increase in abortion,” as rates of out-of-wedlock births exploded at the same time that people were increasingly using modern contraceptive methods.

When the availability of abortion made the birth of a child “a physical choice of the mother,” it also made fatherhood a social choice for the father, who no longer felt equally responsible for the out-of-wedlock birth, said Eberstadt.

Many women believe contraception will make them happier and freer than they were before, Eberstadt said, noting that to the contrary, studies have shown that female happiness has declined.

As an example of how the sexual revolution and widespread use of contraception benefited men more than women, Eberstadt pointed to the recent “Me Too” movement where women have been sharing stories of sexual harassment in the workplace. These stories show how “widespread contraception licensed predation,” she said.

Margaret McCarthy, an assistant professor of theological anthropology at the Pontifical Pope John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family, spoke about another contemporary challenge that resulted from the sexual revolution: “the un-gendering of gender.”

Today’s view of gender as a social construct without any natural difference has resulted in the “forced separation of inseparable things,” such as a woman from her child, the man from the woman, and the child from the parents, said McCarthy.

In this worldview, relationships with others are seen as constraining arrangements that “we didn’t’ sign up for,” she noted. Through artificial reproductive technology, these relationships are then brought back into the picture on different terms, as choices within an individual’s control rather than a natural occurrence, she added.

With these realities in mind, Eberstadt noted that the consistency in the teaching of Humanae Vitae continues to draw in “people who seek the truth and can find it nowhere else.”

Marking the end of the conference, Wuerl recognized that a large part of the anniversary celebration for Humanae Vitae is “a call to the continued accompaniment of those to whom we go out, announce, engage and walk with as we try to help them grasp and appropriate the teaching of this encyclical.”

“We, evangelizing disciples of the Lord Jesus, bring so much to the appreciation of the value of life and the integrity of its transmission,” said Wuerl.

Sankowski is on the staff of the Catholic Standard, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Washington.

https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-usa/2018/04/10/fifty-years-after-release-humanae-vitae-praised-as-prophetic-encyclical/