Episode 114 – A Flood of Truth Part 10 – An Ark’s Worth of Evidence Part 10

Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.

Script/Notes:

[God said] Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.

Genesis, Chapter 9, verses 14 and 15, New International Version

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VK: Hello. I’m Victoria K welcoming you to another episode of Anchored by Truth. I’m in the studio today with RD Fierro, author and Founder Crystal Sea Books as we wrap up the series we called “A Flood of Truth.” RD, would you like to say a word of greeting and give us a little preview of what we are going to hear about in this final episode of our series?

RD: Greetings to all the Anchored by Truth listeners. Well, in our last episode of Anchored by Truth we began our review of a baker’s dozen of facts that listeners can rely upon to assure themselves that the Bible’s account of Noah and the flood is literal history. We understand that in this day and time that skepticism of the Bible’s historicity is widespread. That’s one of the biggest reasons we do Anchored by Truth – to help listeners understand that that skepticism is quite often not grounded in evidence or reason. We also understand that one part of the Bible that is frequently attacked by the skeptic is the first few chapters of Genesis – which is of course where we find the story of Noah and the flood – in chapters 6 through 9. That’s why we wanted to do this series on Noah – to reexamine the evidence that supports the Bible’s historicity. So, in our wrap-up we’re going back over 13 data points that listeners can absorb quickly and easily to assure themselves that the Bible’s account of Noah, the ark, and the flood is trustworthy.

VK: And by extension that other parts of Genesis – and the entire Bible for that matter – are equally trustworthy. We know that a lot, probably most, of the listeners do trust the Bible. But we also know that in today’s world people are often so overwhelmed with the details of life that it can be hard for them to find time to assemble the facts and evidence that can reinforce their faith in the Bible. That’s what we want to do on Anchored by Truth. We want to look at the Bible – and many of the criticisms that are directed against it from the standpoint of an honest layman. And we want to find out whether a reasoned analysis of available evidence supports the Bible’s truth claims or the critic’s. When people do so we think that they find that evidence from a wide variety of disciplines provides overwhelming support of the Bible’s trustworthiness

RD: Yes. So last time we went through the first 7 of our baker’s dozen of data points. Today we want to go through the last 6 data points.

VK: So, just as a brief review the first 3 data points are that the Bible’s description of the ark show that the ark had the size and strength to carry a huge cargo of animals, their food, and Noah’s family. Even when you use conservative estimates the ark had the capacity to transport at least 19,000 sheep sized animals. Also, the ark’s 6-to-1 ratio of length to width is the same basic design proportion used for modern, ocean going vessels so it could be expected to be stable even in rough waters. And, third, the interior and exterior coating of pitch not only sealed the ark against leaks but also improved its impact resistance against collisions with debris. Especially during the earliest parts of the flood the wind and waves would have been tossing huge amounts of vegetation being torn off the sinking lands.

RD: Exactly. And data point 4 is that even the incidental details mentioned in the instructions given to Noah make sense. The opening below the roof would have helped manage the heat load and the 3 decks made sense from the standpoint of both cargo capacity and load management.

VK: And data points 5, 6, and 7 have to do with the fact that there is abundant geological evidence that at one time there was water covering the surface of the entire globe and that that water moved enormous volumes of sediment and earth in exactly the way you would expect in the Biblical flood. Marine fossils are found in a limestone layer just below the summit of Mount Everest. There are layers of sedimentary rock found on every continent on earth and some of these layers are hundreds of feet thick and extend over thousands of miles. Finally, many geologists such as J. Harlan Bretz who is a recipient of the Geological Society of America’s highest award acknowledge that there are canyons on many continents that were not carved gradually through the slow erosion of a particular river. Instead, they were carved suddenly, catastrophically by floods of unimaginable proportions.

RD: Exactly. So, those are 7 of our 13 data points that listeners can return to when they hear assertions that the Bible’s flood story is just a fictional morality tale. Data point 8 is that the earth’s fossil beds contain abundant evidence of a past, sudden catastrophe that caused an immediate burial of both marine and land creatures. For instance, here is an exquisitely preserved fossil of an extinct marine reptile called an ichthyosaur. The mother ichthyosaur is shown having almost completed giving birth to a live infant—the beak of the young reptile is still inside mother's birth canal. If you find a fossil of an isolated tooth or shell, for example, it is not possible to say how quickly or slowly it formed. But there are countless examples of fossils like this one concerning which it is obvious that long time-spans could not have been involved. In this case, not only is the fossil exquisitely preserved, but the fact that mother and infant are 'trapped' in a not-yet-completed birth process makes it profoundly clear that both were rapidly overwhelmed by catastrophic burial, consistent with the world flood of Noah's day. It is, of course, not feasible that mother just lay on the bottom of the ocean floor giving birth for thousands of years while being slowly covered up by accumulating sediments! Unlike many other reptiles, ichthyosaurs gave birth to live young. This means that if the birth had been completed the youngster would have immediately gone to the surface for its first breath.

VK: That’s certainly a dramatic example that, at some point in the earth’s past history, vast quantities of sediment were being swirled around in the oceans. If the bodies of the dead animals that became fossils had been exposed for any length of time fossils wouldn’t have formed at all. So, fossils like that which have features so beautifully preserved must have been buried and hardened before they could be damaged by scavengers or decay. Is that the only fossil evidence that demonstrates the earth was subjected to a massive flood that covered the entire surface?

RD: Definitely not. So, data point 9 is that there are large fossil beds that contain mixtures of marine animals and land animals. Since it is unlikely that these kinds of animals would have lived in close proximity to one another during life, their burial together suggests they were swept up in a common catastrophe and quickly deposited under a thick layer of protective sediment. The fact that marine and land animals were all quickly buried together strongly suggests the burial took place underwater. For instance, one of the richest fossil discoveries ever was made near a huge deposit of coal basin near Autun in France. Some of the fossils discovered in this deposit were saltwater marine creatures. Some were definitely freshwater dwellers (e.g. amphibious), and some were definitely land creatures such as spiders, scorpions, millipedes other insects and reptiles. This kind of mixing of creatures from widely separated regions could easily have occurred when the creatures were brought together by ultra-massive flooding.

VK: And this kind of fossil bed where land and sea creatures are mixed isn’t limited to that bed. Fossils discovered in Hell Creek rock formation in Montana contained not only the largest ever T. rex fossil but also the teeth of various species of small marine sharks. The T. rex fossil also contained intact soft tissue and protein. The discovery of soft tissue that was still “soft and stretchy” and intact proteins really poses a problem for the hypothesis that dinosaurs lived tens of millions of years ago. Even the chief of the team that first discovered the intact soft tissue, Dr. Mary Schweitzer has admitted there is no known way soft tissue could be intact after tens of millions of years. They also discovered proteins such as collagen, hemoglobin, osteocalcin, and tubulin. These are complex molecules that continually tend to break down to simpler ones. All of these discoveries are perfectly consistent with dinosaurs being around in Noah’s time and the fossils being created by a worldwide flood.

RD: Right. And data point 10 is that there are other features on the earth that point out at some time in the past there was a huge hydrological event that created vast deposits of vegetation that would be extremely hard to explain in any other way. In Australia there’s an enormous coal deposit called the Latrobe Valley Coal Measures. The coal seams there occur within thick layers of clay, sand and basaltic lava, which together form a 2,300-foot sequence of rocks. These lie in a large, deep depression, called a ‘basin’, shaped like a triangle that’s almost 200 miles wide and long. Most of the basin lies under the ocean off the southern coast of Australia. Offshore the coal measures are estimated to be almost 3 miles thick. Latrobe Valley coal consists of a mass of very fine plant debris containing partly-decomposed plant remains. It is clear that a great quantity of plant material accumulated in the past to produce such huge deposits of coal. A worldwide, catastrophic flood is the easiest explanation for how so much vegetation could have accumulated in this pattern in one place.

VK: But, of course, there are geologists who believe that a Biblical flood didn’t cause the Latrobe Valley Coal Measures, aren’t there. Some geologists believe that the coal deposits were created by an enormous swamp where plants just grew for hundreds of thousands of years and as they died they gradually accumulated in layers deep enough to form the coal. They say that the vegetation accumulated as peat in a swamp during ideal climatic and geologic conditions. They say the swamps formed on floodplains near the coast, which were slowly sinking and eventually inundated by the ocean. Isn’t that a possibility?

RD: It’s a possibility but there are problems with this explanation. First, there is no sign of soil under the coal, as there would be if the vegetation grew and accumulated in a swamp. Instead, the coal rests on a thick layer of clay and there is contact edge between the coal and clay is so clean it could be a knife edge This kaolin clay is so pure that it could be used for high-class pottery. Furthermore, there are no roots penetrating the clay. Second, not only is there no soil, but the vegetation found in the coal is not the kind that grows in swamps today. Instead, it is mostly the kind that is found in mountain rainforests. The best match for the mix of vegetation in the coal occurs in the mountains of the western half of the island of New Guinea some 4,000–7,000 feet above sea level. Similar vegetation is also found in the mountains in Australia, Malaysia, New Caledonia and New Zealand. The kinds of plants that make up the coal did not grow in a swamp on a floodplain. Third, within the coal seams are pollen-rich layers up to 20 inches thick. It makes sense that the pollen was washed there by water, because flowing water would sort vegetation into its different components. The idea that such huge pollen-rich layers could gradually accumulate in a coastal swamp over long periods of time does not make sense. Finally, when the brown coal burns, it leaves hardly any ash behind. The ash produced from most of these coals ranges from 1.5–5%, which is less than the 3–18% ash in typical peat. The low ash is consistent with the vegetation being transported and washed by water, not with lying in a swamp for tens of thousands of years. Then there are a number of distinct volcanic ash layers that run horizontally through the coal. If the vegetation had grown in a swamp, these distinct ash layers would not be there. After each volcanic eruption, the volcanic texture of the ash would have been obliterated when the swamp plants recolonized the ash, turning it into soil.

VK: And the Latrobe Valley Coal Measures is not the only feature we see on the face of the earth that points to a massive flood as its cause. But it’s one that is easy to think about concretely and absorb readily. And listeners who would like to study this point more thoroughly can go to creation.com which is the website for Creation Ministries International. So, what is data point 11?

RD: Data point 11 is that we see genetic evidence of the flood in the composition of the human population that’s currently living on the earth. We can see this through what is known as mitochondria DNA. This is a limited set of DNA that is not found in a cell’s nucleus but in the organelle that is the more-or-less the power plant of the cell which is called the mitochondrion. Mitochondria DNA is generally inherited only from our mothers. As such the mitochondria DNA distribution of the world’s population can give us insight into our female ancestors. Well, genetic studies have shown that there are three main mitochondria lines of DNA present around the world. Evolutionists refer to these lines as “M,” “N,” and “R.” Evolutionists were surprised at the lack of diversity present in the mitochondrial lines but this evidence is entirely consistent with the Bible’s flood account.

VK: Yes. It’s important to remember that all the people living today are descendants of Noah’s 3 sons and their wives. So, the lines of mitochondrial DNA that would be present could only have come from one of the four women on the ark: Noah’s wife or his 3 daughters-in-law. But the Bible never tells us that Noah had any daughters – only sons. Noah’s sons would not have contributed to the mitochondrial descent lines. So, it reasonable to conclude that the 3 main mitochondrial DNA lines we see present on the earth today trace back to Noah’s 3 daughters-in-law. Again, this is observational evidence that is consistent with the Bible’s flood account. Listeners who would like to investigate this subject further should visit creation.com where there are several good articles on mitochondrial DNA or there’s a discussion of the flood effect on mitochondrial DNA in chapter 19 of Dr. Jonathan Sarfati’s commentary on Genesis called The Genesis Account. So, data point 11 is that even human genetics points out that at one point in the past there was a something that caused a bottleneck in the population. This bottleneck resulted in the preservation of three primary lines of mitochondrial DNA. And one simple explanation for how that happened is provided by the Bible’s flood account. So, what about data point 12?

RD: Data point 12 is what I call “the story of the story.” With any event as catastrophic as the Biblical flood you would expect the generation that experienced the event and the succeeding generations to repeat the story over and over. But of course, when the story is repeated it won’t always remain the same. It will grow, be embellished, or just repeated erroneously. And that’s what we see with the flood story. Some observers have counted almost 200 different variants on the flood story around the world and just about every culture on earth has one.

VK: What are some of the best known of variants?

RD: As we mentioned in our last episode, one of the best known of the variants and probably the one that most closely tracks the Biblical account is the Babylonian flood narrative. In the Babylonian narrative their Noah is called Utnapishtim. Utnapishtim is warned by a friendly god in advance that a great flood is coming and orders him to build an ark to save not only his own family but also a group of representative animals. The ark finally grounds on a mountain named Nisir in a mountain range northeast of Babylon.

VK: But as we also mentioned last time, the design of Utnapishtim’s ark reveals that the Biblical account is far more reasonable. In the Babylonian account the ark Utnapishtim built was a perfect cube with six decks. It goes without saying that - in complete opposition to the stability of the Biblical ark - a cube-shaped vessel would roll and capsize quite easily in open waters. Such a vessel could never have remained upright in the roiling seas that would have been present in the initial flood conditions.

RD: Yes, and that same kind of lack of reasonability marks the other flood legends. An Ojibwa Indian legend from around Lake Superior tells of a great snow that fell one September at the beginning of time. A bag contained the sun’s heat until a mouse nibbled a hole in it. The warmth spilled over, melting the snow and producing a flood that rose above the tops of the highest pines. Everyone drowned except for an old man who drifted about in his canoe rescuing animals. There is another Native American tribe, the Havasupai, attributes the Grand Canyon’s carving to a catastrophic flood down the Colorado River that occurred when the god Ho-ko-ma-ta unleashed a tremendous rainstorm. A more benevolent god, Pu-keh-eh, put his daughter in a hollowed-out log to save her from the monstrous current. After the flood receded, she crawled out and became mother of all humanity.

VK: So, it’s easy to see that these kind of legends contain mythological elements that are quite different from the reserved and historical character of the Biblical account. Ok. What about your 13th data point?

RD: My 13th data point is that the ice age is a good case where the Biblical flood account makes more sense than the conventional explanation. The Bible says that the cause of the flood wasn’t just a torrential rain for 40 days but also that the “fountains of the great deep burst open.” Many Biblical geologists agree that this referred to not only underwater volcanoes erupting into the oceans but also subterranean reservoirs of extremely hot water also being injected into the oceans. This activity would have formed the ideal conditions for an ice age to develop. The ocean’s temperature would have risen. Warm water evaporates more quickly than cool water so there would have been abundant precipitation for an extended period. At the same time, the volcanic ash that would have entered the atmosphere would have reflected sunlight producing a protracted period of colder weather. This would have been a perfect condition to allow ice sheets to form over the land in the upper parts of the northern hemisphere and Antarctica. The cooler temperatures in the summer would have reduced the glacial melt allowing the glaciers to gradually extend to the limits that are now evident.

VK: But, of course, this isn’t the only possible explanation for how the extensive glaciers of the Ice Age could have formed, is it? Non-Christian geologists believe that change in the tilt of the earth’s axis may have produced extended periods of colder temperature – conceivably up to thousands or even tens of thousands of years.

RD: That is another possible explanation for the Ice Age but the kind of changes proposed in the earth’s orbital geometry have too small an effect. And if the earth had cooled in this way it would have become much drier. There would have been less evaporation from gradually cooling oceans, not more. This would interfere with snow development and the formation of the enormous ice sheets which all scientists agree once existed. By some calculations the air would have been as much as 60% drier in the proposed scenario – which is pretty much a fatal problem for the recurrent precipitation/freeze/accumulation cycle that would have been required. This is why the Ice Age is a major challenge for secular scientists. There are over 60 ideas (theories) on the origin of the Ice Age. That is why David Alt who is a professor of geology at the University of Montana, stated: “Although theories abound, no one really knows what causes ice ages.”

VK: So, all 13 of these data points – plus a great many more that we didn’t have time to cover in this series – points out the conclusion is that the Bible’s flood account is consistent with scientific observations of the earth and life on the earth. And for anyone who would like to investigate this topic more thoroughly we are including several helpful links to the podcast notes that will be available through most major podcast apps. We would also recommend visiting the website for Creation Ministries International at creation.com. Do you have any final thoughts for today?

RD: Yes. We are well aware that a great many people do not agree with the conclusions that we have reached during our Flood of Truth series. But one thing I would point out is that a worldwide flood as described by the Bible points to a clear and straightforward explanation for all of the phenomena that we have discussed. If you dismiss the historicity of the flood account you have to come up with another explanation and very often these explanations are only plausible, at best, for one or two of the phenomena but not the others. The Bible’s explanation clearly, easily, and straightforwardly accounts for them all.

VK: People need to study these subjects and make up their own minds. But as we’ve set so often, approaching these topics through a lens that rejects the Bible’s historicity is not more scientific than a lens that accepts the reliability of the Bible. Bible critics may doubt the Bible but their doubt is just that - doubt. Doubt is not evidence. Sounds to me like a good time for a prayer. Today let’s listen to a prayer for the upcoming celebration of American independence – the fourth of July.

---- PRAYER FOR FOURTH OF JULY

We hope you’ll be with us next time and we hope you’ll take some time to encourage some friends to tune in too, or listen to the podcast version of this show.

If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!”

(Bible Quote from the New International Version)

Genesis, Chapter 9, verses 14 and 15, New International Version

https://creation.com/topics/global-flood

https://activechristianity.org/6-unbelievably-good-reasons-to-read-your-bible

https://considerthegospel.org/2014/03/28/the-noah-controversy-could-that-flood-have-happened/

How could Noah get all the animals on the Ark? - creation.com

Fascinating French fossil find - creation.com

Hell Creek Formation supports the Bible - creation.com

What caused Ice Age - creation.com

Marine Fossils on Mount Everest - Media Center - creation.com

Also, consult Chapters 17 through 20 of “The Genesis Account” by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati available from creation.com.