...with an even more intriguing answer:
Did Noah's flood cover the Himalayan mountains?
"The key is to remember that the Flood didn't have to cover the present Earth, but it did have to cover the pre-Flood Earth, and the Bible teaches that the Flood fully restructured the earth. "The world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished" (II Peter 3:6). It is gone forever. The earth of today was radically altered by that global event."
I remember watching a documentary years ago; a speculation concerning the 'global deluge' archaeological digs around the world not merely suggested, but pointed to. One portion I remember vividly was an animation of 'the fountains of the deep' breaking open the continent, pushing lands west and east; literally creating the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Too many people today, however, will accept any theory other than one that validates the biblical account... of anything!
So. DID Noah's flood cover the Himalayan mountains? No. It didn't have to. Those mountains didn't exist prior to the flood.
MORE EVIDENCE...
How about whale fossils in the Chilean desert?
Researchers from the USA and Chile reported, in November 2011, a remarkable bone bed on the west coast of northern Chile near the port city of Caldera, about 700 kilometres (440 miles) north of the capital, Santiago. Excavations uncovered the remains of some 80 baleen whales of which more than 20 specimens were complete. They also found other kinds of marine mammals including an extinct dolphin with tusks and a sperm whale.
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The site in a corner of the Atacama Desert is now well above sea level and over a kilometre from the shore.
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Why must the mythological books of the bible be literal? Certainly there are many parts later that even Evangelical Christians see as allegory and metaphor. Why do you have to prove the literal truth of the great flood, Egyptian plagues, Garden of Eden, etc.?
"The Bible also places the date of construction on the Tower of Babel roughly 100 years after the great flood. Saying a population could go from 6 people (Noah and his wife don't count, they didn't have any more children) to enough people to build the Tower of Babel as it is described in the Bible is absurd. This tower was so great that it threatened God, so it must have been greater that the pyramid of Khufu which took 30,000 people to build.
In the 24th century BCE, several ancient civilizations - notably Ancient Egypt and the Indus Valley - had existed, and continued to exist, without any sign of total extinction from a global flood. Egypt has a continuous written history going back to about 3100 BCE, (plus archaeological evidence of continuous habitation going back to 9000 BCE) and the only floods they talked about were the annual flood of the Nile River which irrigated their crops.
In chapter 10:25 it says that "in the days of" Peleg the world was divided... scattered according to language (Gen 11:8).
Just for assumption's sake, let's say the event of Genesis 11:8 happened midway through Peleg's 239 years. Add 111 + 119. That means six couples had 230 years to populate the then world. There were no laws against incest in those days; Abraham married his half-sister.
After 230 years of procreation there would have been plenty of people to build the tower. Even if the events of Genesis 11:8 occurred a quarter of the way through Peleg's 239 years, that would have put the event of Gen 11:8 at 180 years. Still plenty of time to procreate enough able working bodies.
This is simply not true. There are legends of a great flood in every corner of the world, including North, Central and South America. And there is no definitive proof of any continuous habitation further back than 3500 BCE... Carbon Dating is not reliable (as lay-people suggest).
We can take a sample of air, count how many 12C atoms there are for every 14C atom, and calculate the 14C/12C ratio. Because 14C is so well mixed up with 12C, we expect to find that this ratio is the same if we sample a leaf from a tree, or a part of your body.
In living things, although 14C atoms are constantly changing back to 14N, they are still exchanging carbon with their surroundings, so the mixture remains about the same as in the atmosphere. However, as soon as a plant or animal dies, the 14C atoms which decay are no longer replaced, so the amount of 14C in that once-living thing decreases as time goes on. In other words, the 14C/12C ratio gets smaller. So, we have a “clock” which starts ticking the moment something dies.
Obviously, this works only for things which were once living. It cannot be used to date volcanic rocks, for example.
The rate of decay of 14C is such that half of an amount will convert back to 14N in 5,730 years (plus or minus 40 years). This is the “half-life.” So, in two half-lives, or 11,460 years, only one-quarter of that in living organisms at present, then it has a theoretical age of 11,460 years. Anything over about 50,000 years old, should theoretically have no detectable 14C left. That is why radiocarbon dating cannot give millions of years. In fact, if a sample contains 14C, it is good evidence that it is not millions of years old.
However, things are not quite so simple. First, plants discriminate against carbon dioxide containing 14C. That is, they take up less than would be expected and so they test older than they really are. Furthermore, different types of plants discriminate differently. This also has to be corrected for.[2]
Second, the ratio of 14C/12C in the atmosphere has not been constant—for example, it was higher before the industrial era when the massive burning of fossil fuels released a lot of carbon dioxide that was depleted in 14C. This would make things which died at that time appear older in terms of carbon dating. Then there was a rise in 14CO2 with the advent of atmospheric testing of atomic bombs in the 1950s.[3] This would make things carbon-dated from that time appear younger than their true age.
Measurement of 14C in historically dated objects (e.g., seeds in the graves of historically dated tombs) enables the level of 14C in the atmosphere at that time to be estimated, and so partial calibration of the “clock” is possible. Accordingly, carbon dating carefully applied to items from historical times can be useful. However, even with such historical calibration, archaeologists do not regard 14C dates as absolute because of frequent anomalies. They rely more on dating methods that link into historical records.
Outside the range of recorded history, calibration of the 14C "clock is not possible.
But we can agree to disagree. I'm not trying to convince you of anything.
Besides which, there is a growing body of evidence that is tearing down old 'neolithic' beliefs within the science community. Science isn't an operation by which one makes evidence say what one desires it to say, and there is a growing cadre of scientists who are scientists first, and ideologues somewhere further down the line. The scientific community is flooded with people who ignore evidence because it contradicts their belief system, but these are a dying breed.
What role might the Genesis Flood have played in the amount of carbon? The Flood would have buried large amounts of carbon from living organisms (plant and animal) to form today’s fossil fuels (coal, oil, etc.). The amount of fossil fuels indicates there must have been a vastly larger quantity of vegetation in existence prior to the Flood than exists today. This means that the biosphere just prior to the Flood might have had 500 times more carbon in living organisms than today. This would further dilute the amount of 14C and cause the 14C/12C ratio to be much smaller than today.
"If that were the case, and this C-14 were distributed uniformly throughout the biosphere, and the total amount of biosphere C were, for example, 500 times that of today’s world, the resulting C-14/C-12 ratio would be 1/500 of today’s level...."
--J. Baumgarder, C-14 evidence for a recent global Flood and a young earth, Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, Vol. 2, 2005
When the Flood is taken into account along with the decay of the magnetic field, it is reasonable to believe that the assumption of equilibrium is a false assumption.
Because of this false assumption, any age estimates using 14C prior to the Flood will give much older dates than the true age. Pre-Flood material would be dated at perhaps ten times the true age.
To repopulate the earth in 200 years to the extent of building a monument equal or greater than the Pyramid of Khufu (largest pyramid in Egypt, which apparently didn't threaten God) you would need a birth rate above 100%. That means every MAN and woman and CHILD duplicates every year. Today's birth rate is around 5% with all the modern technology and knowledge of pregnancy and birth and child care. And this ignores the problems of trying to rebuild a population from the genetic stock of less than 10 individuals.
In addition there are logistical problems with the story of two (or seven) animals of each kind. How did koalas or pandas which only eat food from a very specific geography reach the arc? What did the carnivores eat during the time aboard the arc? How did the plants survive being water-buried for more than a month.
How would a ship built to the biblical specifications survive in a global ocean during a storm? Modern oceanographic and atmospheric models suggest such a body of water would have waves hundreds of meters maybe miles high.
How would growing populations of humans and animals survive after the waters receded (Where did the water go?) without plant matter. How would animals like elephants and giraffes which feed on adult plants survive without mature plants to eat?
The most reasonable explanation that I read was that a large meteorite crashed into the Mediterranean Ocean spawning a tidal wave all along its coasts. Such an even would seem as if the whole world was flooded to the people of that time. In other parts of the world flood myths are a common heritage, because they are a common disaster. whereas not everywhere experiences tornadoes or volcanoes, every place on Earth has been flooded.
And there's the rub. You can only accept certain reasonings, most likely based on what you will or will not allow; i.e., biblical certainty versus scientific certainty. You appear to operate from a position that insists no harmony can exist between the two. I do not.
As to birth-rates, there was no contraception in those days, and less genetic degradation. Births were frequent and plentiful, albeit more hazardous, and families were as large as could be provided for.
If there are currently 122 Osmonds, including parents Olive and George, all nine children, their children and grandchildren, consider what was accomplished in just 60-odd years. Now multiply that by 3 and double the children of Donny, Marie, and the other seven children (because of larger families). In two hundred years that turns out to be a great host. And physically healthier than than the average person today.
And how does someone provide for a family of 120 when you don't have modern farming techniques and tools (tractors)? When in fact all the wheat and grains of the entire planet have been buried under water for more than a month.
Even the prolific Osmond family only has a birth rate of 2% per year. To get to the 30,000 needed to build a monument equal to the pyramid of Khufu you need a birth rate higher than 100%.
It just isn't possible within the bounds of present biology and physics. So I look for an answer that explains as much of the facts as possible with the framework of reality.
Year 1 - twins
year 2 - triplets
year 3 - quadruplets
year 4 - quintuplets
year 5 - sextuplets
year 6 - septuplets
year 7 - octuplets
etc. up to at least
year 11 - doztuplets...when the first child could possibly be at the age of reproduction
...
AND for every male adult a woman must have an extra child every year, because 100% reproduction calls for every human to be duplicated.
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AND every child must survive, zero infant mortality.
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There is no way that can happen even with current biology and medical technology.
It simply isn't possible to get from Noah to Babel as the Bible describes it.
100%, realistically, only requires two children.... what I'm talking about here is replacement (I'm not sure what you're talking about).
The Osmonds, for example (George & Olive) produced a 450% return on their procreative investment.[2 children=100%. Therefore 2x4=400%. If 2=100%, then 1=50%. Nine children, therefore, equals 450%).
Are you seriously trying to tell me that at a beginning point of just 6 people, in 230 years, 30,000 people CANNOT be produced? 230 years? I contend that 6 people will produce MORE than 30,000 people in 230 years.
You have no faith in man's desire and drive to procreate! None whatsoever!