Episode 109 – A Flood of Truth Part 5 – The Story of the Story

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 to Noah and his sons: I am giving you my blessing. Have a lot of children and grandchildren, so people will live everywhere on this earth. …

Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, left the boat. Ham later had a son named Canaan. All people on earth are descendants of Noah's three sons.

The Book of Genesis, chapter 9, verses 1 and 18 and 19. Contemporary English 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. Today we’re going to continue our discussion about Noah and the flood that’s described in chapters 6 through 9 of the book of Genesis. We’ve been talking about Noah for a few episodes now – in part because the story is so well known. But despite the story being so well known, the story is quite often misunderstood. RD, would you like to say hello to the Anchored by Truth audience and give us a quick overview of some of what we’ve been talking about?

RD: Sure and hello to all the Anchored by Truth listeners. Let’s start by reminding everyone that the Bible treats the story of Noah as literal history. As you mentioned the story of Noah is often misunderstood in popular culture today. Frequently, the story is either regarded as just another ancient myth at worst or a sort of allegorical morality tale at best. But that‘s not at all how the Bible presents the story. The Bible is clear that at one time, over 4,000 years ago, widespread wickedness in the world made it necessary for God to destroy almost all of the land life on the earth. And as we heard in our opening scriptures God restarted the human race with Noah, his 3 sons, and their wives. So, that’s one big point. At one point in history there was a gigantic bottleneck in the human population of the earth. Therefore, if the story is true, which we certainly believe it is, the effects of that bottleneck should be perceivable genetically today. We’re going to talk about that in a second along with another phenomenon that emerged from the flood event. I call this phenomenon the “story of the story.”

VK: Hmmm. That sound’s slightly mysterious but also intriguing. But before we get too far along into the “story of the story” let’s start off by looking at the final part of Crystal Sea’s Life Lessons with a Laugh series on Noah. This Life Lesson reinforces the historical reasonability of the ark’s design that comes to us from the Bible, especially the fact that the ark was designed with the strength that it would need in a hostile environment.

---- NOAH 5 – Strength in the Storm

VK: Hmmm. All that sounds a little intriguing and scary at the same time. Ok. Let’s listen to you and Jerry unearthing – so to speak – one more lesson from the story of Noah and the Genesis flood.

---- NOAH 5 – Strength in the Storm

VK: Ok. There were two big surprises in that lesson. First, you got Jerry’s name right, not once but twice. Second, that you pointed out that a detail as seemingly insignificant as God’s direction to coat the ark with pitch actually helps confirm the truth of the entire account.

RD: Well, the fact that I got Jerry’s name right might be a surprise but the value of adding the pitch to the ark is a detail that many others have noted. There’s a good article that gives more detail about the pitch’s role in ship building on creation.com. The article is entitled, aptly enough, “The Pitch for Noah’s Ark.”

VK: So in the last three Life Lessons we’ve covered the fact that the Biblical description of the ark makes sense in the real world. As described in the Bible the ark would have had the size to carry the animals and their food. It had the right dimensions to remain stable in rough seas. And the nature of the wood available in Noah’s location combined with the coating of pitch would have produced a very strong vessel. All these factors help increase our confidence that Biblical story is a true story. But you said that today you wanted to talk about two things. First, you want to discuss the genetic evidence of the fact that there was at one point in history a major bottleneck in the human population of the earth. Second, you want to discuss the “story of the story.” What in the world do you mean by that?

RD: Well, let’s start by thinking about other kinds of stories especially the kind that old guys like me like to tell.

VK: Uh, oh. This is starting to sound scary too…

RD: Not really. You’ll like this illustration. Let’s suppose that there’s a high school athlete – we’ll call him Jermajesty – who was a baseball player and one year Jermajesty’s hits a single that drives home the winning run. His team goes on to make it to the playoffs in part due to that win. That’s the kind of story that Jermajesty would likely repeat many times during the rest of his life, right?

VK: Well, if Jermajesty is like you …

RD: Exactly. If Jermajesty is like a lot of us he’s going to tell that story a lot of times...

VK: Every time he meets a new neighbor, goes to the barber…

RD: Yeah. The story is going to be repeated a lot. But, will it always be told in the same way? Or will it grow a little over time?

VK: You mean by the time Jermajesty is in his 40’s now the single has become a double or a triple?

RD: Yes. And after Jermajesty’s retirement it’s now a grand slam. And he hit it with two outs and a full count in the bottom of the 9th. You get the idea. Stories don’t always end up where they start out, even when there is a completely true story to begin with. So, it should not be surprising then, with an event as catastrophic as a Biblical flood that as Noah’s descendants began to repopulate the earth and move around the flood story would go with them. And over time, as the Noah’s children and grandchildren moved, aged, changed, and had children of their own, the original story also moved and changed. 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: 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. Similar to the Biblical account, Utnapishtim sends out a dove, a swallow, and a raven to check out the conditions. Finally, Utnapishtim and his family are able to emerge where they offer sacrifices to the gods, but in the Babylonian epic the gods are famished because they couldn’t receive altar-food while the flood waters were on the earth.

VK: Quite a difference from the God of the Bible who is completely self-sufficient and never has need of anything from the hand of men.

RD: Yes. Because of the extent of the similarities between the Biblical account and the Babylonian account some observers have suggested that the Biblical account arose from the Babylonian but this seems highly unlikely given some extremely significant differences between the two.

VK: Such as?

RD: Such as the design of Utnapishtim’s ark. 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. Any passengers of such a vessel would have likely been beaten to death – literally – even if the vessel itself continued to float. No modern boats from kayaks, canoes, or ocean going vessels ever use a cube as a basic design shape. Furthermore, the Babylonian account contains many dramatic details, but says nothing about specific dates whereas the Biblical account is very specific about the details of time. Noah was 500 before he had children. He was 600 when the flood started. It rained for 40 days and it took 150 days for the water to recede. The ark rested on Mount Ararat on the 17th day of the 7th month. On the 27th day of the 2nd month the earth was dry. It was almost like God was filling in a day-planner with the dates he did things.

VK: And even though there is uncertainty about how those dates might translate into the Gregorian calendar we used today, 3,000 plus years ago when Moses first wrote the account those dates would have been well understood.

RD: Yes. There is a popular tendency today to doubt the veracity of a historical account if we don’t see how it immediately fits into the reference marks we use in our world. If we can’t assign a precise Gregorian date to an event some people will deny it could be true, but this obviously makes little or no sense. The Gregorian calendar only started to come into popular use in 1582 and there are still countries that don’t use it. When you think about it, the majority of the world’s history occurred before our current calendar even took effect. But when it comes to ancient calendars there is some tantalizing confirmation of the Biblical dates from a surprising source.

VK: This sounds interesting.

RD: It is. Lxtlilxochitl,

VK: Easy for you to say.

RD: Yeah. No. Not so much. Anyway, Lxtlilxochitl was an Aztec native historian who wrote that the world lasted 1716 years before it was destroyed by a flood. What’s fascinating about this is that this figure is only 60 years different from the 1656 years which the Bible gives by addition of the ages in the genealogy presented in Genesis chapter 5.

VK: Well, that is a fascinating coincidence if that’s what it is. Have you come across any other tantalizing tidbits?

RD: There are some truly interesting hints that either the Genesis story or even Noah’s name has been preserved in surprising ways around the world. As most people know the traditional Chinese language uses symbols or characters for words as opposed to the way Western written languages use a combination of alphabetic letters to form words. Well, the Chinese character for a large ship is a combination of three radicals which individually mean “boat” or “vessel”, the number “8” and the symbol for “mouths” or “persons.” Remember that the Bible says that eight people were saved from death by the ark: Noah, his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth and their wives.

This is particularly fascinating because a lot of scholars date the existence of the written Chinese language to the general time frame of twelve hundred or so years before the birth of Christ which is about the time orthodox Christian scholars believe Moses wrote the book of Genesis. Some scholars believe that the Chinese characters predate the existence of a written version of Genesis meaning that the character was derived from another source not an early version of the Biblical book. One distinct possibility is that the Chinese character’s origin just harkens back to the original story.

With respect to the potential preservation of Noah’s name the Hottentots of South America believe they are descended from “Noh.” The Hawaiians report a flood from which only “Nu-u” and his family were saved.

VK: Those are intriguing details. But you say that some of the variant flood narratives also point to distinct differences with the Genesis narrative that lend more credence to the historicity of the Biblical one.

RD: Yes, just a couple of quick examples before we close for today. 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.

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.

VK: All right. That gives us some good insight into what you mean by the story of the story. What about the genetic evidence you were referring to that demonstrates that at one time there was a major bottleneck in the human population?

RD: We see genetic evidence of the flood 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. 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. The 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 .

VK: So, the main point is that here is another point from scientific observation that is consistent with the description of the flood account. We’ve covered a lot of ground in the last few weeks and our listeners have probably heard things about Noah’s story they had never heard before. But we haven’t yet talked about the animals on the ark and I think you want to begin that discussion next time.

RD: I do. And one final reminder for today. By their very nature past events, especially those of the distant past – like the flood of Noah - cannot be repeated. So to make intelligent assessments about whether such a flood took place or is highly likely to have occurred we have to look evidence that is available today. And as we reminded everyone last time, all investigators, all interpreters of evidence, bring a viewpoint, a lens through which they interpret evidence. I’m hesitant to say they bring a bias because that word can have a negative connotation but we certainly should be aware of our interpretive lens. This is particularly important when it comes to evaluating the historicity of Bible events.

VK: That is a very important point. Today Bible critics may try to criticize – say a geologist – who believes that the earth’s crust provides evidence that a worldwide flood occurred by saying the geologist is a Christian. But that criticism would be no more valid than someone criticizing a non-Christian geologist who doesn’t believe a flood occurred by pointing out that that geologist isn’t a Christian. It’s no more fair to say that a Christian geologist can’t interpret geological evidence fairly than to say that a non-Christian geologist can’t. Sounds to me like a good time for a prayer. Today let’s listen to a prayer for Christian missionaries who carry the good news about Jesus to peoples and cultures all over the world.

---- PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES (#9)

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(Bible Quote from the Contemporary English Version)

The Book of Genesis, chapter 9, verses 1 and 18 and 19. Contemporary English Version

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

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

https://answersingenesis.org/noahs-ark/safety-investigation-of-noahs-ark-in-a-seaway/

https://christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a007.html

Safety investigation of Noah's Ark in a seaway - creation.com

https://answersingenesis.org/the-flood/geologic-evidences-for-the-genesis-flood/

https://discovermagazine.com/2012/jul-aug/06-biblical-type-floods-real-absolutely-enormous

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

https://www.bibleinfo.com/en/questions/there-evidence-flood-was-global

https://creation.com/the-pitch-for-noahs-ark

https://discovermagazine.com/2012/jul-aug/06-biblical-type-floods-real-absolutely-enormous

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

https://creation.com/cmi-misrepresents-ancient-chinese-language