Across the Pastor’s Desk: Explanations of worldwide flood

Published 8:11 pm Thursday, April 26, 2018

Across the Pastor’s Desk by Kent Otterman

Kent Otterman

 

Last week I shared some scientific evidence pointing to the worldwide flood in the days of Noah. Did you know that over 200 cultures around the world have some form of a great flood in their traditions? One non-Christian website says that stories of a flood have been found in 258 different people groups around the world. Over 90 percent of these stories indicate that the flood was worldwide in extent, killing all humanity except a select “hero figure.”  Over 70 percent of the accounts mention that the flood was sent by some “god-like figure.”  Approximately 50 percent of the accounts include details indicating that the flood was sent in response to man’s sinfulness, that the hero was saved along with a select few (often from his family), and that he was saved on some sort of floating vessel. Twenty-five percent of the accounts, from cultures spanning the globe, specifically mention that animals were taken on the floating vessel and also saved. A significant number of accounts even mention that a rainbow was sent after the flood as a sign of hope; or that birds were sent out to see if the flood was over; or that the flood lasted for many months or even years.

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All this makes perfect sense if the global flood of Noah was a reality which happened several thousand years ago, just as it is clearly recorded as a factual event of history in the Bible. People groups would have moved out from the Middle East subsequent to this world re-shaping catastrophe, taking with them the memory of this event. With time, different cultures would have developed slightly different versions of the real event, but the remembrance would be genuine and persisting.

Skeptics of the worldwide flood of Noah’s time come from a mindset devoted to the principle of naturalism. Naturalism depends on the rejection of any supernatural intervention in human history. In order to explain all of life without God, vast periods of time are required. A worldwide flood eliminates the need for such huge periods of time because it explains the rock and fossil record in terms of a single, intense year-long catastrophe only a few thousand years ago. Thus the rejection of a global water catastrophe is critical to maintaining the naturalist world view and has led to ridicule of the flood as a real event of history. Yet why are the stories so often tied to judgment of mankind by God? Why are they so widespread in nature? Why is there not judgment by ice for the Eskimos, drought for the Egyptians or earthquake for the Armenians? Why is humanity always saved by a single man (plus a few others) on a floating vessel? Only a common remembrance of a real event in earth history explains the widespread nature and common themes of these flood accounts.

Kent Otterman is chaplain of Good Samaritan Society of Albert Lea, pastor of Round Prairie Lutheran Church of rural Glenville and Faith Lutheran Church of London.