Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
Question:
How many inches per hour of global rainfall for 40 days and nights would it take to cover Mount Everest?
J A Paulos in his book: Innumeracy
The book of Genesis says of the Flood that "...all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered..." Taken literally, this seems to indicate that there were 10,000 to 20,000 feet of water on the surface of the Earth, equivalent to more than half a billion cubic miles of liquid! Since, according to biblical accounts, it rained for forty days and forty nights, or for only 960 hours, the rain must have fallen at a rate of at least fifteen feet per hour, certainly enough to sink any aircraft carrier, much less an ark with thousands of animals on board.
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What World View-belief system did the writer of Noah and the ark have?**
Apply facts of physics to the story
If a canopy holding the equivalent to more than 40 feet of water were part of the atmosphere, it would raise the atmospheric pressure accordingly, raising oxygen and nitrogen levels to toxic levels.
If the canopy began as vapor, any water from it would be superheated. This scenario essentially starts with most of the Flood waters boiled off. Noah and company would be poached. If the water began as ice in orbit, the gravitational potential energy would likewise raise the temperature past boiling.
A canopy of any significant thickness would have blocked a great deal of light, lowering the temperature of the earth greatly before the Flood.
Any water above the ozone layer would not be shielded from ultraviolet light, and the light would break apart the water molecules.
Why is there no evidence of a flood in tree ring dating? Tree ring records go back more than 10,000 years, with no evidence of a catastrophe during that time.
[Becker & Kromer, 1993; Becker et al, 1991; Stuiver et al, 1986]
Why is there no mention of the Flood in the records of Egyptian or Mesopotamian civilizations which existed at the time? Biblical dates (I Kings 6:1, Gal 3:17, various generation lengths given in Genesis) place the Flood 1300 years before Solomon began the first temple.
We can construct reliable chronologies for near Eastern history, particularly for Egypt, from many kinds of records from the literate cultures in the near East. These records are independent of, but supported by, dating methods such as dendrochronology and carbon-14. The building of the first temple can be dated to 950 B.C. +/- some small delta, placing the Flood around 2250 B.C.
Unfortunately, the Egyptians (among others) have written records dating well back before 2250 B.C. (the Great Pyramid, for example dates to the 26th century B.C., 300 years before the Biblical date for the Flood). No sign in Egyptian inscriptions of this global flood around 2250 B.C.
Questions raised: Population rise
How did the human population rebound so fast? Genealogies in Genesis put the Tower of Babel about 110 to 150 years after the Flood [Gen 10:25, 11:10-19]. How did the world population regrow so fast to make its construction (and the city around it) possible? Similarly, there would have been very few people around to build Stonehenge and the Pyramids, rebuild the Sumerian and Indus Valley civilizations, populate the Americas, etc.
Why do other flood myths vary so greatly from the Genesis account? Flood myths are fairly common worldwide, and if they came from a common source, we should expect similarities in most of them. Instead, the myths show great diversity. [Bailey, 1989, pp. 5-10; Isaak, 1997] For example, people survive on high land or trees in the myths about as often as on boats or rafts, and no other flood myth includes a covenant not to destroy all life again.
Why should we expect Genesis to be accurate? We know that other people's sacred stories change over time [Baaren, 1972] and that changes to the Genesis Flood story have occurred in later traditions [Ginzberg, 1909; Utley, 1961]. Is it not reasonable to assume that changes occurred between the story's origin and its being written down in its present form?
**
Hebrew cosmology (http://sol.sci.uop.edu/~jfalward/ThreeTieredUniverse.htm) should be made to understand why the authors of Genesis considered the Flood possible. Above the flat earth there was a dome, called the firmament, to which the stars were attached and within which the sun and moon moved about. Above the firmament are the waters mentioned in Genesis 1:2 ('the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters'). This structure is also mentioned in Genesis 1:6-7. The firmament is perforated by 'the floodgates of heaven' (Genesis 7:11, 8:2). The Flood is caused by these floodgates being opened, and a rising-up of the waters beneath the earth (Genesis 1:6-7 and 7:11 again). This cosmology suggests that there is a very large amount of water available outside the firmament and beneath the Earth for use in the flood. In this cosmology, it is not hard to imagine how rainfall on the order of 800 cm/hour would be possible.
Unfortunately, the Hebrew mythology is not consistent with empirical observation. Creationists and flood catastrophists thus must resort to 'vapor canopies'.
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Population computation
If we assume that girls start having babies at 15, and have one a year until they're 65, each girl has 50 babies. If half the babies are female, and everyone lives 200 years on average, it may be possible to reach a million people in the times required.
According to the Bible, Noah's sons had 14 sons themselves, so we can assume they also had 14 daughters. If we start with 10 reproducing men and 10 reproducing women 30 years after the flood, in another 50 years we could have 500 (250 men, 250 women). 50 years after that, there could be at least 20,000, which could swell to close to half a million in another 50 years. At this point, some of the "originals" start to die off, and life expectancy start to drop, to the newly-mandated 120 years, so the rate of growth may slow. Still, it shouldn't take more than a few centuries to have several million people available, which is all you need for the pyramid stories.
Global Flood - 2500 to 2300 BCE
Tower of Babel destroyed - 1928 BCE
Egypt Exodus - 1447 BCE
So that makes 372 to 572 years from the Flood to Babel tower : 10 million people in roughly 600 years
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Earlier stories compared to Genesis account
Gilgamesh: -
When a seventh day arrived
I sent forth a dove and released it.
The dove went off, but came back to me;
no perch was visible so it circled back to me.
Genesis 7
8 And he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground. 9 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him to the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth
Gilgamesh
I sent forth a raven and released it.
The raven went off, and saw the waters slither back.
It eats, it scratches, it bobs, but does not circle back to me.
Genesis 7
7 And he sent forth a raven, and it went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth
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Continuity of Troy through the Flood era
Troy I (3000 - 2500 BC)
The first civilians of Troy built their city on a hill of 16 meters. Today we'll only find a wall with two towers and some houses of Troy I. The houses were long and small and the walls 2,5 meter weight. Probably, Troy I burnt down.
Troy II (2500 - 2300 BC)
After Troy I burnt down, the civilians built a new city on the rests of the old city. The houses were bigger than these of Troy I. It was a rich Troy, which you can see on the portal way. Troy II had a radial of 55 meters. Troy II had much money so Schliemann believed this was the Troy of king Priam. Later Wilhelm Dorpfeld thought that Troy VI was the Troy of king Priam. Troy II is destroyed by an attacking nation.
From:http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache...=es&lr=lang_en
Archeology in Troy:
no evidence of a global flood in the layers of this city.
Nor in Jericho.
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Christians based their religion on Judaism
Judaism based their religion on Babylonian polytheism
Babylonians based their religion on Akkadian polytheism
Akkadians based their religion on Sumerian polytheism
Sumerian polytheism is formed from Ubaidian polytheism
this takes us back to around 5000 BCE
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Conclusion?
To have a rational basis for accepting the Noah flood story in our Bible we must believe more than 6 impossible things before breakfast.