INTRODUCTION

It is not my intention to deal with the arguments from a great variety of disciplines including Geology, Meteorology, Ecology and Animal Husbandry against an universal flood. There are plenty of web sites that do this including, Donald Hochner's, Noah's Flood: Global or local. Instead I wish to make perfectly clear what the Bible itself says about the flood. There are two traps people fall into. First there are those who treat the story as a myth. It may be based on a real event but the Bible record cannot be relied upon to be factually true. Secondly there are those who believe it is true. Their Christian faith is somehow wrapped up in believing that God drowned the whole earth and rescued only Noah and his family. Such people are not interested in arguments from Geology or Meteorology. They just believe that God could do it and think that this shows great faith. It doesn't show any faith at all. As James so rightly says, faith without deeds is dead. Jms2v6. The strange thing is that both groups have one thing in common; they do not take the text seriously and study it in detail to work out what it is actually saying.

It will be my aim to study the text and show that it is a remarkably realistic account of a local flood of great depth and extent. It seems to me to preserve with great accuracy the eyewitness account of someone involved in the flood. However the account itself is only compatible with a flood of local proportions.

My background as a Geomorphologist and the shrewd observations in the old, 'Pulpit Commentary on Genesis' (Published 1907), have helped me in my task.

It will be helpful to read a brief summary of the flood based on Genesis chapters 6, 7 and 8 before continuing. See: The World's most famous Flood.

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