Evidence for the flood and a young earth

1. Evidence for the flood and a young earth By John Ashton MSc PhD CChem FRACI

2. There is massive evidence of a global flood There are massive sedimentary (formed under water) deposits on every continent: coal, sandstone, limestone & conglomerates (pebbles). There are no modern parallels for the formation of these fossil rich deposits and conglomerates. Eg. The Morrison Formations with their dinosaur fossils stretch from New Mexico to Canada. Eg. Chalk beds up to 100 m thick & rich in fossils stretch from Ireland to Turkey. Eg Grand Canyon with sediments 1.6 km thick but millions of years of geological strata missing.

3. Coal beds containing similar plant fossils stretch from Texas, across Europe to the Caspian sea. The Coconino Sandstone which stretches across Arizona, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas has cross beds indicating water 90 metres deep was flowing at 1 -1.5 m/sec producing sand waves up to 18 metres high which deposited 42,000 cubic kilometres of sand. The bedding layers in most deposits show very little surface erosion indicating rapid deposition. Creatures that are rapidly decomposed are preserved and there are action fossils eg eating, hatching - all indication very rapid preservation. There are negligible numbers of fossil “intermediates” or mutations. I.E the evidence for species evolving over time is not there.

4. In a study of over 200 flood myths, Morris found the following similarities. ComparisonsofWorldFloodMyths Event % thatContain 1. Was the catastrophe a flood, not another type? 95% 2. Was flood global? 95% 3. Was a favored family saved? 88% 4. Were specifically eight people saved? 9% 5. Was the rainbow mentioned? 75% 6. Did animals play any part? 73% 7. Was survival due to a boat? 70% 8. Were animals also saved? 67% 9. Was flood due to wickedness of mankind? 66% 10. Were they forewarned? 66% 11. Did survivors land on a mountain? 57% 12. Were birds sent out? 35%

5. The ark – realistic or not? • The ark described in Genesis is more realistic than the basket and cube type craft mentioned in other accounts. In modern measurements the ark would have been about 140 metres (450 feet) long, 23 metres (75 feet) wide, and 14 metres (45 feet) high. • Very realistic figures in terms of naval architecture and stability at sea - eg similar to kayak. The displacement of The ark has been calculated to be around 39,000 tonnes with an inside capacity of around 39, 644 cubic metres (1.4 million cubic feet) with an estimated deck area of 8,890 square metres (95,700 square feet). • Geologist John Woodmorappe has published a well researched feasibility study demonstrating that sufficient kinds of animals would fit and survive on the ark to be able to repopulate the earth with the different kinds of animals that we know of today.

6. Calculations: Date of flood • Solomon’s 4th year 966 B.C. • Exodus 479 years earlier, 1445 B.C. (1Kings 6:1) • Covenant with Abraham 430 years before the Exodus 12:40-41, Galatians 3:16-17. • Covenant with Abraham 427 years after flood. • That is from flood to Exodus was 857 years. • Therefore flood was 1445 + 857 =2302 B.C. • Note: Ussher has Solomon’s 4th year as 1012 B.C • I.e. 46 years earlier. Note 2302 – 46 =2348 B.C.

7. 3958 BC Creation - Adam born 3828 BC Seth born 3723 BC Enos born 3028 BC Adam dies 2916 BC Seth dies 2902 BC Noah born 2818 BC Enos dies 2402 BC Shem born 2302 BC Flood 2080 BC Terah born 1952 BC Noah dies 1950 BC Abraham born 1902 BC Shem dies 1775 BC Abraham dies 1525 BC Moses born

8. Four generations after Noah, Genesis 10:25 records the birth of Peleg (meaning division) ‘for in his days was the earth divided’. The traditional interpretation, relates this verse to the division of people/nations at the Tower of Babel event in Genesis 11. According to the biblical chronology, the Flood occurred in 2302 BC, and Peleg was born in 2201 BC about a hundred years later.

9. According to the fourth book of De Caelo (‘About the heavens’) by Simplicius, a Latin writer in the 6th century AD. After Alexander the Great had defeated Darius at Gaugmela in 331 BC. , he journeyed to Babylon. Here he received 1903 years of astronomical observations from the Chaldeans, which they claimed dated back to the founding of Babylon. If this was so, then that would place the founding of Babylon in 2234 BC, ie about 68 years after the flood and 33 years before the birth of Peleg.

10. The Byzantine chronicler Constantinus Manasses (d. 1187) wrote that the Egyptian state lasted 1663 years. If correct, then counting backward from the time that Cambyses, king of Persia, conquered Egypt in 526 BC, gives us the year of 2188 BC for the founding of Egypt, about 13 years after the the scattering of the peoples, or 114 years after the flood. This would be during the time of Mizraim, the son of Ham, the son of Noah. Mizraim led his group into Egypt. Hence the Hebrew word for Egypt is Mizraim (or sometimes ‘the land of Ham’ e.g. Psalm 105:23,27).

11. According to the 4th Century historian Eusebius of Caesarea, Egialeus, king of the Greek city of Sicyon, began his reign in 2089 BC, 1313 years before the first Olympiad in 776 BC. (See Eusebius, Chronici Canones, Humphredurn Milford, London, Preface pp. 1–14, 1923. ) If Eusebius is correct, then this first Greek king started to reign about 112 years after the dividing of the peoples.

12. Note that Babylon, Egypt, and Greece each spoke a different language. These ancient historians have unwittingly confirmed the extreme accuracy of the biblical genealogies as found in the Hebrew scriptures. The Tower of Babel would have had to have occurred before the founding of these other kingdoms. Babel (Babylon), being in the same region as the Tower, would have been one of the earliest kingdoms, of course. Of the other kingdoms, the ones most distant from Babel would have been founded the latest. This is exactly what these writers have described. First Babylon, then Egypt, and then Greece were founded.

13. Further evidence comes from Chinese history. According to the oldest text of the Bamboo Annals (Chu shu chi nien), the first royal house in China was established by the ruler and sage Fu Hsi in 1994 BC. ( Britannica, 1967, Vol 5 p 575). That is 107 years after the scattering of the people from Babel in the year Peleg was born.

14. Summary Flood 2302 BC Babylon 2234 BC Astronomical records Peleg 2201 BC Scattering peoples Egypt 2188 BC Greece 2089 BC China 1994 BC Noah dies 1952 BC Abraham 1950 BC Shem dies 1902 BC

15. Table of the nations. • The “land of Egypt” , i.e. the land where Egypt settled, also the “land of Ham” is actually named after Noah’s grandson Mizraim, the son of Ham, the youngest son of Noah. The name “Egypt” is the Greek version of Mizraim. On maps Egypt is named Mizr. • Manetho (C. 270 B.C.) recorded the history of Egypt at that time and wrote that “after the flood”, Ham, the son of Noah, begat “Aegyptus or Mestraim”, who was the first to establish himself in the area now known as Egypt at the time when the tribes began to disperse.

16. Table of the nations. • Grecians were referred to a “the sons of Javan” another grandson of Noah, via his second son Japheth. Javan is also the Hebrew name for Greece, and is also used to refer to the descendents of Javan and their lands namely Ionia, Macedonia, Greece and Syria. • Dr Robert Young LLD notes that Japheth is probably the original of Japetus or Iapetus, whom the Greeks considered as the ancestor of the human race.

17. Table of the nations. • Ancient Armenian writers call the Armenians descendants of Togarmah or Ashkenaz, the sons of Gomer who was also a son of Japheth. • Japheth had another son called Magog. Josephus notes that the Magogites were called Scythians by the Greeks - a people occupying southern Russia and the Ukraine. • Another one of Japheth’s sons and grandson of Noah was Madai who according to Josephus was the father of the Madeans, who are called the Medes by the Greeks and who lived in the region south of the Caspian sea.

18. Ebla tablets and Sumarian King Lists In 1974 an archive of around 20,000 very ancient cuneiform tablets was discovered at Ebla in northern Syria. These tablets contain several references to the Canaanites who lived in “the land of Canaan”. Canaan was another son of Ham and grandson of Noah. Canaan was the father of Sidon and the town he founded later became the chief city of ancient Phoenicia on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Genesis record also says that the land of Canaan extended from Sidon in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim as far as Lasha.

19. These four towns, Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which no longer exist and up to this time were only mentioned in Genesis and Hebrew literature, were also found to be named in the tablets as were towns and regions that are well known to historians and archaeologists such as Hazor, Lachish, Megiddo, Gaza, Sinai, Joppa and Damascus. The mention of Canaan and the four cities of the plain provide very strong evidence that Genesis contains factual historical information. Details of the Ebla tablets evidence have been explained in more detail by Dr Giovanni C. Pettinato, professor of Assiriology at the University of Rome, who was the epigrapher who translated the tablets.

20. Sumerian flood accounts such as on the Weld-Blundel prism and other ancient tablets and manuscripts contain what is known as the Sumerian king list. This list names eight kings who lived before the flood who ruled for very long periods of time – tens of thousands of years, then after the flood the kings are listed as ruling for very much shorter periods of time - hundreds of years. • Note: Flood listed in a historical context.

21. Cornell University genetics researcher Dr John Sanford has plotted the post-flood lifespan data recorded in Genesis, in other books of Moses, and other Hebrew historical literature recorded by different authors down through the Centuries. • These records of the life spans of people during a period of nearly 2,000 years after the flood, fit the shape of an exponential biological decay curve. • The calculated correlation coefficient is 0.90 meaning the fit of the data is very good and could not have been easily contrived as the data comes from different records spanning many centuries. • Dr Sanford points out that not only is the data very consistent with genomic degeneration caused by mutation accumulation, but the curve is actually very similar to theoretical decay curves reflecting genomic degeneration.

22. Deuterium Effect We observe today that ground waters contain much higher levels of what is known as “heavy water” or “deuterium water”, whereas artic snow contains the lowest levels. When the deuterium content of water is increased the number of mutations in the cell DNA increases. These mutations result in imperfect replication of the cells and is one of the important reasons why we age and eventually grow old. When plants are grown in very low deuterium water, they grow more slowly. The Genesis account states that water spewed out from deep within the earth. It also states that the begat ages (when they fathered a child) of these pre- flood patriarchs was usually 65 years or more. That is Deuterium rich water released into the bio-sphere during the flood could explain the gradual decrease in life expectancy recorded in genesis vie increases in DNA mutation rate mechanism.

23. Astronomer G. Dodwell’s observations The angle of the earth’s tilt, known as the “obliquity of the ecliptic”, Can be easily calculated from the sun’s shadow, being the angle mid way between the angle of the sun at the longest day (summer solstice ) and the angle of the sun at the shortest day (winter solstice). The position of the Sun at these times was often marked on ancient monuments. Calculations by former S. Australian Govt Astronomer George F Dodwell showed the earth’s tilt had been wobbling over and above that predicted by Newcomb’s formula. The log plot of the wobble amplitude went tangential at approximately 2345 B.C. That is that we have evidence of a major event which significantly disrupted the tilt of the earth at this time.

24. Other evidence for a young earth Dragon / Dinosaur connection – stories and pictures – Europe, China, USA. Unfossilised dinosaur bones found ( including some with blood cells) Whale fossils on mountains in South America American Indian thunderbird stories etc

25. Other Scientific evidence for a much younger earth than required by evolution theories Rate of decay of Earth’s magnetic field Rate of accumulation of helium gas in atmsphere No widely expanded super nova ( Exploded star) Rate of moon receding – moon not far enough away Oceans not salty enough given rate that salt is being washed into sea. Mt St Helen’s and Surtsey Island formations suggest great age Vs Niagra rapid erosion.

26. Radiometric dating Measurable Carbon 14 found in diamonds and coal Helium found in zircon crystals – radiohalos Historic 50 year old lava on the New Zealand Mount Ngauruhoe volcano , dated:- 133 million years ( Rb-Sr) 197 million years ( Sm – Nd) 3,908 million years (Pb- Pb)

27. Summing up • Massive sedimentary rock deposits – world wide. • Massive fossil beds world wide which can only be explained by a catastrophic water movement. • Ancient flood accounts have been preserved around the world • Many towns, regions and countries spreading from Babylon have been named after Noah’s grandsons. • Genesis account is scientifically realistic eg size of ark, length of flood (300 days), decline in lifespan, astronically verified event. • Radiometric dating methods have not been validated for pre-historical dates and there is evidence for a young earth.