Chapter Eleven

THE WORLD-WIDE FLOOD

Historical Evidence

Similar stories of a world-wide flood have been among peoples all over the world: Romans, Babylonians, Gypsies, Mongols, Africans, Australian Aborigines, Hindus, Polynesians, and American Indians. Dr. Richard Andree found and recorded eighty-eight flood histories.1 These must have had their common origin in a historical event, the world-wide flood.

Inland Seas

When Marco Polo went through Central Asia he noted lakes which are now dried up. Fossil seas are evidence that sea water covered the earth. In different parts of the world, basins show that they were once filled with salt water. Examples are: Han Hai (Interior Sea) in China, the inland basin in India, and the basin in the high tableland of Tibet.2 Each year the Caspian Sea shrinks; the fact that it is becoming less salty shows that its source was sea water. In the United States the Great Basin was once filled with salt water, Lake Bonneville. Great Salt Lake is the small remains. Old shore lines are apparent, showing the great size of Lake Bonneville. Inland salt seas show that the world was once covered over with sea water.

Polystrata Tree Trunks

Tree trunks have been found in different parts of the world that were covered with layer upon layer of water laid sediments that became rock.3 If it had taken millions of years for the layers (strata) to be deposited, the upper parts of the trees would have rotted away before the upper strata were deposited. This clearly shows that the strata were laid down in rapid succession.

Sedimentary Rocks

Water laid materials formed rock layers which cover much of the earth's surface. These parallel strata do not have evidence of erosion between them. They must have been laid down rapidly without time for erosion in between. Vast areas were covered. Nothing like this is happening today. Even the largest rivers cover only small areas in their floods and deltas. Where did all the water laid materials come from that became sedimentary rock? Sedimentary rocks are not now being laid down on the bottoms of oceans. There was a world-wide flood that tore the surface of the world covering vast areas of the world with stratum upon stratum in rapid succession without time for erosion in between.4 Tides swept the earth. Volcanic eruptions sent forth great waves of water, tsunamis, and spewed forth lava, ash and dust upon the earth. The great fountains of the great deep burst forth.5 The waters above the earth came down.6

Fossils

Forests were smashed and compressed by waves and layers of water laid deposits, forming coal. Coal is found all over the world on every continent even in Antarctica near the South Pole and on Spitsbergen (Svalbard) near the North Pole. Various kinds of sea life are often found on top of and between layers of coal. Corals and deep sea crinoids often alternate with coal layers. This shows that the waves were from the ocean that smashed the trees and vegetation and then deposited them over vast areas in layer upon layer. Vast areas of the earth are covered with water laid vegetation that became coal under high pressures from the materials above.7

Vast amounts of animals and fish were buried by water laid material before they had time to rot. Fossil fish show by the prints of their bodies in the rocks that they were fleeing for their lives when they were suddenly covered over with mud that became rock. Soft plants and worms were covered so rapidly that you can see the fossil prints in the rocks. Yes, the fossils tell us that there was a great flood that swept the earth.

Fossil whales have been uncovered in Michigan. Fossil sharks have been found in the rocks of Ohio. Fossil fish beds are located near Kemmerer, Wyoming at about 7,000 feet above sea level. These creatures were entrapped by raging waves of water and materials that became rock.8

Animal bones have been found in great numbers in hilltop strata and cracks (fissures). Agate Springs, Nebraska is one example, where it is estimated that 9,000 animals were buried in one stratum.9
A very remarkable classical example of such an isolated hill is found in Burgundy, France, in the valley of the Soane. The hill is about 1,030 feet above the surrounding plain with steep flanks on all sides. A fissure near the top of the hill is crowded with animal skeletons. No skeleton is entire, the bones are fractured, are thrown together in disorderly fashion, and are unweathered and ungnawed.10

Fossils show that the strata were laid down rapidly by waves of water with mud that became rock.

Charles Darwin wrote in his Journal of the Voyage of the Beagle under the date of January 9, 1834:
It is impossible to reflect on the changed state of the American continent without the deepest astonishment. Formerly it must have swarmed with great monsters: now we find mere pygmies, compared with the antecedent, allied races. . . . What then has exterminated so many species and whole genera? The mind at first is irresistibly hurried into the belief of some great catastrophe; but thus to destroy animals, both large and small, in Southern Patagonia, in Brazil on the Cordillera of Peru, in North America up to Bering's Straits, we must shake the entire framework of the globe.

The bones and skeletons of dinosaurs are found in many parts of the world, deposited in water laid strata. Some dinosaurs were swept into piles by the water and mud that became rock. In a park near Vernal, Utah you can see the dinosaur skeletons in water laid rock. Dinosaur bones are even found in water laid rock on the North Slope of Alaska, above the Arctic Circle. The climate of Alaska was warm before the flood, when there were waters above the expanse. Dinosaur fossils have been found in Antarctica. Millions of dinosaurs perished in the world-wide flood. Dr. Austin, geologist, wrote:
The Morrison Formation of the Rocky Mountain region also is tremendously extensive, occurring from New Mexico to Canada and from Kansas to Utah. It is world-famous for its dinosaur fossils. Morrison formation dinosaur skeletons are often articulated, requiring that muscles and ligaments of the large animals were present at the time they were rapidly buried. Sedimentary formations indicating catastrophic flood processes are not confined to North America but occur on other continents as well.11

Geologist Clifford L. Burdick reported the discovery of two human skeletons, Homo sapiens, imbedded in Cretaceous rock near Moab, Utah.12 (Dinosaur fossils are found in Cretaceous rock.) Humans perished in the flood just as dinosaurs and other creatures did. Also, notice that the evolutionary time table is not scientific.

Before the flood, different kinds of animals lived in different locations and elevations. These different life zones caused them to be buried by the great waves of the flood in different locations and at different levels as the water level rose and as the strata were built up.13

Mountains

Today there is about 48 times as much water in the oceans as there is land above sea level. Much of the world's mountains rose after the flood, as shown by their twisted and bent sedimentary strata. Strata were bent without fracturing which shows that they were still soft when uplifted.14
Psalm 104:6-8: . . . The waters were standing above the mountains.
At Thy rebuke they fled;
At the sound of Thy thunder they hurried away.
The mountains rose; the valleys sank down
To the place which Thou didst establish for them.

Was the Ice Age Caused by the Genesis Flood?

Meteorologist Michael J. Oard concluded that the oceans were warm at the end of the flood. Volcanic ash and dust in the atmosphere reduced the heat from the sun. Moisture from the warm oceans produced snow on the cold northern lands. Possibly the Ice Age was caused by the Genesis Flood.15

The Historical Record of the Bible

The history of the world-wide flood is recorded in Genesis chapters 6,7, and 8. The Septuagint Text indicates that the flood took place about 3400 B.C.16 The sinfulness of mankind caused God to send the flood. Genesis 7:19-24 clearly states that the whole world and mountains that then existed were covered over by waters of the flood. All people outside of the ark perished because of their sins and rejection of God. The world-wide flood tells us about God, about His judgment on sin.

Jesus Messiah spoke about the flood and His return on the day of judgment:
Matthew 24:37-39: "But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. (NKJB)

Jesus put His seal of approval on the historicity of the flood. If you believe in Jesus then you will believe that there was a world-wide flood in the days of Noah. If the flood had only been local, there would have been no need for building the ark; Noah and his family could have left the local area. If the flood had only been local, the ark would have been flushed down to the Persian Gulf rather than landing on the mountains of Ararat.

The Apostle Peter spoke about the scoffers of our time:
2 Peter 3:5-7: For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which now exist are kept in store by the same word, reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. (NKJB)

Yes, the world-wide flood in the days of Noah show us that the day of judgment is coming for us also. Jesus the Messiah will return. You and I will stand before the judgment seat of Messiah. 2 Corinthians 5:10. This world will be burned up. Now is the time to repent, to turn to Messiah.
2 Peter 3:9-10: The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. (NKJB)

You can be saved from fire and judgment. Noah and his family were saved from the judgment and destruction that came upon the world in their time.
1 Peter 3:20-22: . . .when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water. And corresponding to that, baptism now saves you - not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but the appeal to God for a good conscience - through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven.

Germaine Lockwood


1 Richard Andree, Die Flutensagen, etnologisch betrachtet, cited by Alfred M. Rehwinkel, The Flood (Saint Louis: Condordia Publishing House, 1951), p. 129.
Byron C. Nelson, The Deluge Story in Stone, A History of the Flood Theory of Geology (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1931), pp.170-190.
Arthur C. Custance, "Flood Traditions of the World," in A Symposium on Creation IV, edited by Donald W. Patten (Grand Rapids: Baker Book house, 1972), pp. 9-44.
2 Rehwinkel, The Flood, pp. 188-192.
J.E. Shelley, The Flood, Pamphlet No. 160 (Santhia, Stoke, Hayling Island, Hants, England: Evolution Protest Movement).
John Whitcomb and Henry Morris, The Genesis Flood (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1966), pp. 313-317.
3 N.A. Rupke, "Prolegomena to a Study of Cataclysmal Sedimentation," Creation Research Society Annual, III (May 1966), pp. 16-37.
Harold G. Coffin, "Research on the Classic Joggins Petrified Trees," Creation Research Society Quarterly (Vol. 6, No. 1. June 1969), pp. 35-44.
4 Harold W. Clark, "The Mystery of the Red Beds," Creation Research Society Quarterly (Vol. 3, No. 2, July 1966), pp. 12-16.
5 Rehwinkel, The Flood, pp. 108-122.
Whitcomb and Morris, The Genesis Flood, pp. 122-23, 261-268.
6 Joseph C. Dillow, The Waters Above: Earth's Pre-Flood Vapor Canopy (Chicago: Moody Press, 1981).
7 Nelson, The Deluge Story in Stone, pp. 69-81.
Rehwinkel, The Flood, pp. 192-200.
Whitcomb and Morris The Genesis Flood, pp.162-166.
John C. Whitcomb, The World that Perished (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1988), pp. 81-85.
Steven A. Austin, Catastrophes in Earth History (El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 1984), pp. 213-14.
8 Ian T. Taylor, In the Minds of Men (Toronto: TFE Publishing, 1987), pp. 88-95.
9 Nelson, The Deluge Story in Stone, pp. 40-50.
Whitcomb and Morris, The Genesis Flood, pp. 154-161.
10 Henry Howorth, The Mammoth and the Flood, p. 216 cited by Rehwinkel, The Flood, p. 180.
11 Steven A. Austin, "Did Noah's Flood Cover the Entire World? YES" in The Genesis Debate, edited by Ronald F. Youngblood (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1990), p. 224.
12 Clifford L. Burdick, "Discovery of Human Skeletons in Cretaceous Formation," Creation Research Society Quarterly (Vol. 10, Sept. 1973), pp. 109,110.
F. A. Barnes, "The Case of the Bones in Stone," Desert Magazine, (Feb. 1975), pp 37-39.
13 Harold W. Clark, Fossils, Flood and Fire, (Escondido, CA: Outdoor Pictures, 1968).
14 John C. Whitcomb, The Early Earth (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1972), pp. 66,67.
Austin, "Did Noah's Flood Cover the Entire World? YES", pp. 221-225.
15 Michael Oard, An Ice Age Caused by the Genesis Flood (Santee, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 1991).
Donald W. Patton, The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch (Seattle: Pacific Meridian Publishing, 1966).
16 Richard A. Teachout, Noah's Flood - 3398 B.C. (Minneapolis: Bible-Science Association, 1971).

Copyright ©1996 by Germaine Charles Lockwood. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Scripture quotations in this work, unless otherwise indicated, are from The New American Standard Bible, Copyright ©1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations from The New King James Bible (NKJB), Copyright ©1979,1980,1982, Thomas Nelson Inc., Nashville, TN. Used by permission.

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