Noah's Flood, how to see it

Noah's Flood, how to see it.

First of all: it happened. Just as Scripture says it happened.

What you first need to see is this: the earth was very different at that time. The land had yet to be divided. This is a KEY point. The land mass geologists have coined Pangeia still existed. This is important because this fact (the drifting of the continents that can be seen so obviously by looking at the eastern coast lines of South and North America compared to Africa and Europe), again, this fact connects actual history that is still sublime and supernatural-like with the actual flood, which seems myth-like. If you get your mind in the context of there being one single landmass on earth still then it's easier to see the flood itself. Because before you do that you tend to think: "Universal flood, ok, all of middle east AND Argentina and Fiji, all covered over in water. OK." But it wasn't like that because the land had yet to be divided (Gen. 10:25).

The next thing to realize is the flood was universal in terms of humanity. It just needed to kill humanity. Even if it still covered that entire Pangeia that is less difficult to envision than covering the entire globe.

The very eco-system of earth was different then. There was a covering over the earth of water. This is what caused the long lifespans (among other things such as great health and purity of the genetic stock, so to speak) and the growth of dinosaurs (reptiles that never stop growing so they could reach such huge dimensions). A strange world to envision, YET you can kind of 'see' it nevertheless. We all have visions of this pre-flood world in our memory to some extent. Some childhood memories touch on it in terms of weather and seeing a different look of the sky. It's subtle to try to write about, but the sense of more verdent earth and closer sky is part of it. Some of the imaginative literature like 'middle earth' (I suppose because I've never read those books) might get at it. Anyway, that covering over the earth of water was part of what the flood was. That water came down. After the flood the world was very different.

As for the ark: it is important to note that it was NOT a vessel. It wasn't built to sail. It was built to float. It was similar as a constructed 'thing' to the tabernacle. It's construction represented the cosmos. It became a temple of sorts on top of the mountain it rested upon. (Kline goes into this in God, Heaven and Har Magedon.) The point is: it was something associated with God just as God gave the Israelites the wisdom to construct the Tabernacle later. It was supernatural in its construction, in other words. Yes, if you don't believe in supernatural events in the Bible then you don't believe in the Bible.

As for the reason of the flood: it was to kill off all the polluted bloodline from Adam. The devil had been busy and successful in defiling the bloodline from Adam with the fallen angels. So only Noah and his family were left that had that pure bloodline from Adam. This is important because this is how the devil tried to impede the plan of God, by making that bloodline impure so that the Messiah could not be born from Adam. So God put the pure Noah and his family in the ark and killed off the polluted population. And remember this is while the earth was still undivided. So it's a strange, strange world compared to the world as it exists today.

As for the races of man coming from Noah after the flood. The races and nations derive from Noah's three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. It is clear the white, or indo-european peoples descended from Japheth. That can be seen in names and place names and all that. The black races descended from Ham (and possibly even the Asian). The Israelites descended from Shem. Whites can be from Shem or Japheth. The three major races (white, yellow, black) don't correspond to the three sons like that. The differences have other factors. One is: the dispersing of the people and nations and giving each their own langauge at the Tower of Babel incident. That separated the people right there. Then Pangeia was itself was divided. The land itself was divided (the Gen. 10:25 breaking up of the ONE continent into many). This would make the people who dispered more isolated by landmass and ocean from each other. All during this process the people developed their unique racial characteristics. Probably with the hand of God in it as well.

As for timeline: timeline, historically, is not a problem. The Bible doesn't say when the heavens and earth were created, and the genealogies don't record actual historical time (i.e. in an unbroken sense). They don't exist for that. So time is not a problem God could have divided the land in a moment, or over time too.

All of this has the hand of God in it. Supernaturalism is inherent in the flood event because it is God breaking into the natural order and causing this event of judgment. If you don't believe in God or in his ability to act supernaturally, then why would you believe in Jesus and his miracles? Or the miracles that occured at the Exodus event? Or that the prophets performed in the times of the kings? On and on...

So when you think 'the Flood' the first thing is to remember it occured before the dividing of the land. (If you don't know about the drifting of the continents, look it up and notice the coast lines of the continents. This is real, historical, and strange because of the scale, so it borders on the supernaturalism that the Flood has in it. This makes it easier to see such things on such scale and that are really supernatural anyway and described as that in Scripture. The people who mock the Flood first of all talk about it as if it's supposed to be some natural event that just happens...naturally...