How one views the extent of the Flood recorded in Genesis typically follows whether they take a young-earth or old-earth view of the creation account. What this means is that the position that the Flood was global tends to follow a young-earth view, whereas a local Flood perspective will tend to follow an old-earth view. Although this is not always the case.

Bruce Waltke acknowledges elements of the narrative that can not so easily fit with a local flood. Gleason Archer, who was essentially an old-earther, nonetheless treated Genesis 7:19 as giving a literal indication of “which are under all the heavens” or else “under the whole sky,” and then concluded,

“Now the most elementary knowledge of physical law leads to the observation that water seeks its own level ... the episode here described lasted more than a year; and there is therefore far more involved here than a temporary surge.”1

Those general frameworks tend to determine the date assigned to the event as well. Young-earth advocate Jonathan Sarfati wrote that “the Bible teaches a global Flood that occurred about 4,500 years ago,”2 whereas old-earth advocate Hugh Ross gives “between twenty thousand and thirty thousand years ago” as his estimate.3

Word Studies Can Only Go So Far

There is a relative and superlative sense of the Hebrew word “all” (כֹּל). If the superlative sense is meant here about the mountains, the life forms, and so on, does that not make the extent question plain? H. C. Leupold defends the superlative use of כֹּל here, saying,

“those who believe in a limited flood, which extended perhaps as far as mankind may have penetrated at that time, urge the fact that kōl is used in a relative sense, as is clearly the case in passages such as Genesis 41:57; Exodus 9:25, 10:15; Deuteronomy 2:25; and 1 Kings 10:24. However, we still insist that this fact could overthrow a single kōl, never a double kōl, as our verse has it.”4

Does the Hebrew כָּסָה address the height of the waters in relation to the mountains? Or, what about מַבּוּל in 7:17—can this suggest “sea” or even a body of water even greater?

Ross addresses the first:

“The Hebrew verb translated ‘covered’ is kasah. This ‘covering’ can be defined in any of three ways: ‘residing upon,’ ‘running over,’ or ‘falling upon.’ The distinctions among these definitions are important. Kasah can be interpreted to mean more than twenty feet of water stood, that is, remained, over the high hills or mountains; or it could mean that this quantity of water either ran over them as in a flash flood or fell upon them as rainfall. The context gives no clear indication which of the three meanings to choose ... Any of the three scenarios would guarantee total destruction, no survivors.”5

Waltke comments on the second, that, “The Hebrew is a technical term for the ‘celestial sea’ associated with the Deluge and ‘indicates the unparalleled cataclysmic nature of the event.’”6

The Case for a Global Flood

In his book Refuting Compromise, Jonathan Sarfati listed eight reasons to believe that the Flood was global.

“If the Flood was local,” he begins:

• Why did Noah have to build an ark? He could have walked to the other side of the mountains and avoided it.

• Why did God send every kind of animal to the ark so they would escape extinction? There would have been other animals to reproduce that kind if these particular ones had died.

• Why was the ark big enough to hold all the kinds of land vertebrate animals that have ever existed? If only Mesopotamian animals were aboard, the ark could have been much smaller.

• Why would birds have been sent on board? These could simply have winged across to a nearby mountain range.

• How could the waters rise to 15 cubits (8 meters) above the mountains (Gen. 7:20)? Water seeks its own level. It couldn't have risen to cover the local mountains while leaving the rest of the world untouched. Nor would a local flood take a whole year to subside.

• People who did not happen to be living in the vicinity would not have been affected by it. They would have escaped God's judgment on sin. If this happened, what did Christ mean when He likened the coming judgment of all men to the judgment of ‘all’ men (Matt. 24:37-39; 2 Pet. 3:3-7) in the days of Noah? A partial judgment in Noah's day would mean a partial judgment to come.

• God would have repeatedly broken His promise (Gen. 9:11-16) never to send such a flood again, because there have been many local floods since then.

• The Bible uses special words for Noah's flood: Hebrew מַבּוּל (mabbul) and Greek κατακλυσμὸς kataklusmos ... Compare the words used to describe ordinary localized floods, for example, Hebrew שֶׁטֶף (sheteph), נָהָר (nahar), נַחַל (nachal), זָרַם (zaram); Greek πλημμύρα (plémmura).”7

Can a Local Flood Be Universal?

This question obviously cannot be affirmatively answered in an unqualified sense. An unqualified “universal” implies all in all of the relevant senses.

Abraham Kuyper was one modern Reformed theologian whose view both accommodated a young-earth position and catastrophist view of geology, on the one hand, and yet left open the possibility for a regional flood on the other. He reasoned that the protection against predatory animals in the Noahic covenant “presupposes that no universal extermination had occurred.” Moreover, “at that time only the middle of Asia was inhabited, and that inhabited region was entirely covered with water.”8

This view preserves all that is necessary about the universal judgment of man, the rough young-earth dating system, and it eliminates the need to answer objections concerning rapid evolution needed for present species, or land-bridges needed for animal life in other continents.

Concerning the relationship between continental drift and universal judgment, Ross makes a thought-provoking start, even if one disagrees with where he ends:

“Through science we can deduce that pre-Flood humans never settled in Antarctica. They lacked the population pressure. They lacked the wealth. They lacked the technology.” From this he infers, “On that basis, and according to the principles of judgment God sets forth in the whole testimony of Scripture, we can reasonably and respectfully conclude that the Genesis Flood did not extend to Antarctica. However, if it did not reach Antarctica, it was nonetheless universal—it touched all the creatures God reached out to judge, no fewer, no more.”9

The moment one grants this, the possibility is open to different treatments of the two hemispheres, to say the least.

Both sides appeal to an original singular “supercontinent,” or “Pangea” in the old earth model. The only question is whether the separation into the present continents was the result of gradual plate tectonics or to the Flood. For Ross, “Antarctica’s ice pack is too thick to have been laid down in only a few tens of thousands of years.”10

Bringing Multiple Perspectives into One Picture

Ross offers a contextual argument that is crucial to any old earth exegesis:

“Our global perspective naturally colors our interpretation of Scripture. When we encounter such phrases in Genesis 7 as ‘under the entire heavens’ and ‘every living thing on the face of the earth,’ we see that face under the heavens as a sphere, a planet. However, in every one of the world’s languages such expressions must always be understood in their reasonable context. What constitutes ‘the entire heavens’ and ‘the face of the earth’ in the perspective of ancient peoples? We must interpret in light of their frame of reference, not ours.”11

Indeed we must see things from whatever that ancient perspective was. Does it follow that Ross has identified it?

Another kind of “global” perspective, this one from the text itself, is how Babel sheds light back on Genesis 1 and 9, or, perhaps, the reverse. Ross draws out how “God’s command [namely, to fill the earth] was ignored for many generations after Noah ... Not until a number of generations after Noah did humans begin to occupy the rest of the globe.”12 In other words, the sin of Babel is a reminder of the concentrated “globalism” that was, at this time, entirely local—that is, in the plains of Shinar (Gen. 11:2).

Then there is the most obvious matter of perspective, namely of Moses himself. Perhaps it is not so obvious. Moses is the author, but Noah is the one experiencing the event. But in what sense did the inspiration of the Holy Spirit through Moses unite the authorial perspective to the original character’s perspective? Much like the vision God gave to Moses in order to communicate the creation week of Chapter 1—the “earth-bound observer”—so in the case of the flood waters filling and receding in Chapters 7 and 8, we can understand an “ark-bound observer.” Given this assumption, Ross writes about the scene as the waters begin to subside,

“Noah would see nothing but water. The high mountain ranges surrounding the Mesopotamian valley would lie beyond Noah’s line of sight. His view was limited, of course, as everyone’s is, by Earth’s curvature, atmospheric conditions, aging eyes, and other factors.”13

Concluding Thoughts

It would seem that the idea that one side of this debate has not thought things through will not do. We soon discover that the other side has an answer. We may not find it satisfying in the end. But the notion that one can draw a quick line from those explanations to a problem of motive or a lack of research is not the mature Christian response.

One who holds to the traditional reading of the Genesis account may do so having no consideration of the latest scientific consensus. It does not follow that he had no capacity for the study. It may also be that such a one allows for open genealogies and so an older timeline that can easily accommodate the records of the Chinese, Egyptian, and other civilizations of antiquity. One who claims to hold to the inerrancy of Scripture and yet believes the case for a local flood is compatible with a universal judgment may be guilty of inconsistency. If we are too uncomfortable with this it may very well make us guilty of a lack of charity. We may lack a sense of proportion as to what constitutes orthodoxy, what true science, and what may be a real departure from either.

__________

1. Gleason L. Archer Jr., Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), 82-84.

2. Jonathan Sarfati, Refuting Compromise (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2004), 241.

3. Hugh Ross, The Genesis Question, (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2001), 177.

4. H. C. Leupold quoted in Sarfati, Refusing Compromise, 242.

5. Ross, The Genesis Question, 149.

6. Bruce Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 136.

7. Sarfati, Refuting Compromise, 242-43.

8. Abraham Kuyper, Common Grace, I:57.

9. Ross, The Genesis Question, 145-46.

10. Ross, The Genesis Question, 146.

11. Ross, The Genesis Question, 146.

12. Ross, The Genesis Question, 148.

13. Ross, The Genesis Question, 150.