n this chapter we will examine the Bible’s claim that the world was once subject to a flood which covered the entire planet, perhaps about two thou
sand years after the creation of the first human beings, basically destroying everything that breathed air. I want to look at two aspects of this. Firstly I want to discuss the reasons why God decided to destroy the creation which He had originally called ‘good’, and
then secondly, to examine the scientific evidence of the flood.Imagine a world in which beings existed who were almost invincible. This was a world where the most sophisticated weapons were swords, bows and arrows, and a world where witchcraft was practiced and used against people. Imagine a world where giants lived, beings who were 3-5 meters in height, beings with incredible strength and supernatural powers. Imagine too what life would be like if these beings were totally dedicated to the pursuit of pure evil? What if they simply did whatever pleased them, having no law but their own, beings governed by the prince of darkness himself?
What I am suggesting here is not simply my imagination, but rather, recorded history which comes from several written sources, plus many stories, folk tales, myths and legends throughout antiquity. The Bible, The Book of Enoch, and The Rig Veda (Hindu Vedic Scriptures), the legends of the Greeks, the Roman heroes and gods, the Ziggurats of the Aztecs, sacred places such as Stonehenge, the lost city of Atlantis and many other stories handed down through generations all powerfully suggest that these creatures existed and influenced history dramatically before the global deluge.
The Bible tells us in Genesis chapter six that the ‘Sons of God took the daughters of men and had children by them’. The book of Enoch calls these beings the ‘sons of heaven’, the Rig Veda refers to similar beings as ‘Black Rakshasas’, which is Sanskrit for demon angel, and the Aramaic refers to them as ‘Watchers’. You may recall a movie which was produced about angels with physical bodies who were called The Watchers. This was taken from the same sources.
What all of these sources suggest and imply is that some of the fallen angels seduced or forced human women to have sex with them and children were produced from these unions. Their children became known in the Bible as the Nephilim. The word Nephilim in the Hebrew language of the Old Testament has two meanings. Firstly it means ‘to fall upon’ as in a giant warrior overtaking you with his power, and secondly it can be translated ‘from the fallen ones’, meaning that these warriors were the children of fallen angels. They became famous for their power in battle; they were to be feared. It is highly likely that these beings are the source of many Greek legends about the gods becoming men, and about the half human - half god legends such as Hercules, and the giants who ruled the city of Atlantis written about by the great Greek philosopher Plato. The Rig Veda tells us that they were the sons of demons. The Book of Enoch tells us that they taught the people war and demon worship which was all given to Satan, the Prince of darkness. They didn’t call him “Satan” as this is God’s name for him; rather they worshipped him as Molech, and other names.
The Nephilim were Satan’s servants. According to Enoch, they taught the people witchcraft and practiced evil without restraint. This book also tells us that there were wars between these beings also, and that they killed human beings at will. It gives the names of the leaders of the fallen angels, and tells us that they taught the people astrology, sorcery and the craft of war. Everywhere there was terrible violence and bloodshed, rape, fornication and different forms of Satanism. History also records that one of the practices of the worship of Molech was the sacrifice of living children. The god Molech was represented as sitting like a Buddha, with large hands held together to form a huge bowl. Into the bowl was poured oil and under the hands a fire was built. When the oil was boiling, the priests of Molech threw human children into Molech’s hands as a sacrifice. These human sacrifices were used to increase the power of the priests of Molech and the worshippers.
The Bible tells us that God was grieved that He had created human beings upon the earth and that their hearts were filled only with evil all of the time. It was in response to this situation that God decided to destroy the world with a flood, an act designed to wipe out the evil and give the world a fresh start. God was committed to His plan of salvation, and this action was necessary for the completion of that plan.
God ordered the archangels to bind those demon leaders who had taught the people to worship Satan. These were sent into Hades where they are being held for judgment (2 Peter 2: 4, Enoch 10:6). God then instructed Noah to build a huge boat, the Ark, the construction of which took one hundred years. Noah and his three sons built the Ark at a time when there had never been rain but rather a mist watered the Earth. No doubt they were ridiculed and most likely their project became like a well known attraction. The Bible tells us that Noah preached to the people, warning them of the coming flood, but no one believed him. He was most likely thought of as a complete nut-case.
Is this story of a global flood true or not? If it is then we need to take the lessons provided by the story very seriously indeed. What about some evidence! Well, on a merely social front, there are over 250
ancient stories of a global flood in as many different cultures throughout the world.1 That is rather a lot. Also, for example, the word ‘ship’ in one very old Chinese language literally means ‘eight people in a boat’. Did you know that it is claimed that there are both photographs and thermo-seismic graphs of the Ark?2 During one particular year in the Second World War it was extremely hot in Turkey and the snow on the highest mountains receded more than at any time for many centuries. An allied spotter plane
was flying over this area filming troop movements and photographed the broken hull of a huge boat sticking out of the thawing ice. The boat had obviously slid down the side of the mountain and had broken up as it went.
It took over 30 years before a team of American scientists were given permission to climb up to the site. They filmed their entire expedition, and after finding the correct position, used thermo-seismic imaging to determine the size of the vessel. This technology basically sends a form of radio wave back to the receiver whenever it hits an object in the ice. In this way they were able to trace the exact pattern and size of the Ark, which was once again buried under the snow. The size was identical to that given in Genesis. The Russian government, who had been instrumental in persuading the Turks to keep the Americans away from the site for thirty years, published articles calling the finds of the expedi- tion a hoax. It was not in the best interests of the Soviet Union to allow proof of Biblical accuracy to be published.
From a geological point of view the evidence for a global flood is enormous. Evolution science has been creating its own self contained system of proof for almost a century now. It has led us to believe that the world has gone through various ages, including an ice-age, to bring us to the present. Evolution has used evolution based formulae to govern its own principles, but the evidence of fossils and rock strati
fication is more often than not completely incompat - ible with evolutionary science. In simple terms, it is the fossils which are used to determine the age of the earth. This presumes that the fossils themselves are sometimes millions of years old, and that they have evolved over millions of years. So, when a scientist
finds a particular fossil, he goes to his evolutionary time scale, and then tells us its age.But who determined their age in the first place? Andhowdoesscienceanswertheproblemoffinding fossils buried together which are supposed to have existed millions of years apart? Evolution theory presupposes the idea that when a species evolves into another species, then the first species dies out and becomes extinct, but the facts do not hold this to be true.
In Texas, in 1993, the footprint of a human being and the bones of a dinosaur were found in the same layer of sedimentary rock. How could a man and a dinosaur be co-existing? More and more scientists are moving away from uniformitarianism (using evolution theories for dating) and recognizing the obvious evidence of catastrophism (evidence of catastrophe). The flood of Noah falls under the cate- gory of catastrophism, a huge catastrophe. Even the finding of any fossil, it is now realized, is evidence of a catastrophe, if only on a local scale. The fossilized bones of a fish or bird trapped and preserved in silt is evidence that the creature died rapidly and unexpectantly. An extreme number of fossils show evidence of instantaneous death, of trying to escape, etc. And how can we explain so-called ages of time when species which are supposed to be millions of years apart are found to have died together, at the same time?
Creation scientist Harry M Morris, in his book Many Infallible Truths states that only the Bible and geology (rightly interpreted) agree in pointing to a worldwide hydraulic cataclysm as the true explanation for the sedimentary fossiliferous strata.3 Consider the proposal that the earth was surrounded by a canopy of water. Because of the vast amount of water above the troposphere there would be no significant differ- ence in temperature, and therefore no rainstorms, wind, or floods. Beneath the crust of the earth were phenomenal amounts of water which were released at the same time as the entire water filled troposphere broke up into a deluge of rain. We know what a thunderstorm can do to a street in ten minutes. Imagine this kind of rain multiplied by one hundred, include also huge underground streams belching out billions of liters per hour, allow this to continue for forty days and nights non-stop, and you have a flood which covers the mountains of Ararat in Turkey.
Imagine the vast amounts of soil and sediment running down mountains and hills which had never before been rained upon. We have landslides when there is a lot of rain, however, keep in mind that the rain has already removed most loose soil from mountains and hills over the centuries. It is thought that entire forests washed down the mountains into the valleys, forming huge seams of lignite coal. Consider too the fact that some scientists believe that our oil reserves are possibly originate from the putrefied remains of large herds of dinosaurs which died together in a cataclysm of some kind.4
Then of course one must consider the volcanic activity which is caused by the hydraulic release from the earth’s crust. All over the world, there would have been volcanic eruptions which formed new countries such as my homeland of New Zealand. The incredible amount of steam, ash and dust blotted out the sun for months dropping the temperature to a likely temperature of minus 150 degrees causing an instant ‘ice-age’ in some parts of the globe, and forming glaciers almost instantly. Animals living near these areas were frozen in time such as the mammoth found on the Siberian Tundra with its stomach still full of grass. In his epic work Gulag Archipelago, the Nobel Prize winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn writes about Gulag prisoners finding a mammoth frozen in the ice. The prisoners systematically thawed the meat and ate it. The animal’s body had not decomposed at all, but rather had been frozen instantly, thousands of years ago. There were no cold areas before the flood, so being in the extreme North at the time of the climate changes would have meant certain and instantaneous death. Consider also that natural formations like the Grand Canyon could just as easily have been scoured out by vast quantities of water over a relatively short time, rather than a small amount of water over a long time.
After the flood the world was a much different place. Now there are extremes of temperature and climate, whereas before the entire planet was warm due to the water vapor in the atmosphere and troposphere. The crust of the earth continues to move and
slip due to the effects of the flood, and of course the atmosphere and temperature changes cause floods, hurricanes, tsunamis and other catastrophes.
There is a point at which God will not allow evil to continue. In this case it was perhaps the point at which children were being sacrificed to a demon god. Eight people and a vast number of animals and food lived on a three storied boat which was almost exactly the same size as a football field.5The Ark floated on the flood waters for about 150 days before settling on one of the mountains of Ararat. The people of Noah’s day had never experienced rain, wind, floods or other natural phenomena which are usual for us, so they presumed that nothing would change. They were wrong.
God has also given us warnings about the next great judgment of the world, and He gave us signs to watch for. Jesus predicted that in the decades preceding His return to earth there would be a great increase in natural disasters, floods, famines, earth- quakes, etc. It may of course be a coincidence, but since 1920, the increase in natural disasters, which have taken human life, has increased ten percent per decade progressively to the present day, whereas prior to this date the rate remains about the same for all of recorded history. In recent news, governments which recognize this increase in disasters are calling for a greater commitment to international response, as many people are dying, even in developed countries such as the USA. The causes of these increases are most likely climate changes due to the exploitation of the planet, deforestation, pollution and the like. Jesus didn’t give specifics about causes; He simply said that these increases would be one particular sign of His return.
The people of Noah’s time were given an opportunity to escape God’s judgment. Their very act of getting aboard the boat would have signaled their willingness to repent and believe God. When all were aboard the boat, the Bible says that, ‘God closed the door’. It was closed from the outside and sealed up. It was basically a huge ramp big enough to support two elephants walking side by side, so no human could lift it. God closed the door and in doing so He cut off any further possibility of salvation. When Jesus returns, the window of opportunity will be closed forever, and God’s judgment will once again fall upon the entire world.
And the Nephilim? Genesis six tells us that theycame into the world a second time, after the flood. Satan again used them, this time to try and stop the Israelites from entering the land God promised to them. They spread once again and their ancestors bred with different races producing freaks and giants. As in the legends of giants, they were workers of stonecraft, cutting stone to build incredible cities and
ziggurats for their human sacrifices. The ziggurats of the Aztecs are made of stones which have been cut incredibly straight and accurate, and in their drawings of human sacrifice, it is a giant who conducts the ceremonies, a being twice as tall as the humans.
There is much we can learn from the past, and often there are strong elements of truth within legends and folklore. In his dialogue Timaeus,6 the Greek philosopher Plato describes the city of Atlantis which was built upon a very large island. He tells us that the god Poseidon produced children with a mortal woman called Cleito. Their firstborn was called Atlas, the legendary Titan giant, however, they had many such children who populated the island. Plato says that they controlled large areas of the Middle East and became evil and corrupt. Eventually, the entire island was destroyed through an earthquake and great deluge. We should never be hasty to dismiss those things which cannot be easily verified, for as the old adage says, sometimes ‘truth is stranger than fiction’.