The Flood Viewed From A Scientific And Biblical Standpoint.
Unbelievers usually pass over the events of the flood with mockery. There is something about them that is only reconcilable with the mental condition of the man who says in his heart, “There is no God.” The old methods of their interpretation of the Scriptures have been abandoned in many particulars. [pg 109] This is the result of two things: first, progression in scientific knowledge; and, second, the Bible was always ahead of science in its scientific allusions. Now, it is known to scientists that there is, at the lowest calculation, forty-eight times more water in our seas and oceans than Keill was willing to allow when he made the objection that it would require the waters of twenty-eight oceans to give us Noah's flood. The objection was, “there is not water enough.” Men seemed to think that the earth contained the water; that the water was standing in the earth. This was very natural, for people generally live upon the land. The Bible, however, presented a different idea, saying, the earth was “standing out of the water and in the water.”
When the Scriptures speak upon this subject they refer to the waters just as a man would who never had any misgivings upon the subject of their sufficiency. Their teachings are in harmony with recent scientific discovery, and against old-fashioned unbelief.
Before Galileo's time men would have been regarded insane if they had asserted the gravity of the air, but the Bible contained the fact. It was laid away in Job 28: 25: “For he looketh to the ends of the earth and seeth under the whole heaven to make the weight for the winds; and he weigheth the waters by measure.”
The force that is required annually in nature to give us the upper waters, to form the clouds, is estimated by Arago to be more than the labor of four hundred million of able bodied men, continued two hundred thousand years.—Aunuaire du bur. des. longit., 1835, p. 196.
The Scriptures speak of floods and disorders that unbelievers of the bygone considered incredible, but in the present time geologists feel that the half was not told, for they are unable to account for all the destructions found in their investigations. The events known in the geological history are only in harmony with the fact that our planet has been subjected to immense submersions. They are scientifically described thus: An internal fire which, raising the temperature [pg 110] of the seas and of the deep waters, caused on the one side an enormous evaporation and impetuous rains, as if the flood-gates of heaven were opened; and, on the other, an irresistible dilation, which not only raised the waters from their depths, broke up the fountains of the great abyss, and raised its powerful waves to the level of the highest mountains, but which caused immense stratifications of calcareous carbonate, under the double pressure of a great heat and a pressure equal to eight thousand atmospheres.—Gansen, p. 195.
The same author gives us the following, which will be beneficial to the scholar: “Water is dilated 1-23 in passing from the temperature of ice melting to that of water boiling. An elevation of from sixteen to seventeen degrees Reaumer will then increase its volume 1-111. Now, we find by an easy calculation that the quantity of water necessary to submerge the earth to the height of 1-1000 of the radius of our globe is equal to 1-333 of its entire volume, or 1-111 of its third. If, then, we suppose that the one third of the terrestrial globe is metallic (at the mean specific gravity of 12-1/2), that the second third is solid (at the weight of 21), and that the remaining third is water; then, first, the specific gravity of the entire globe will be equal to 5-1/2 (according to the conclusions of Maskeline and of Cavendish); and, secondly, it will have been sufficient for the submersion of the earth to the height of 6,368 metres, or 1,546 metres above Mount Blanc; that the temperature of the mass of the water in the days of the deluge should have risen to sixteen degrees Reaumer is a reasonable conclusion.” This calculation also has reference to the unnecessary idea that the flood was universal. But why is it that a few men recognize the existence of a God omnipotent and ridicule the flood?
The sufficiency of the ark is also called in question. Buffon says the various species of four-footed animals may be reduced to two hundred and fifty. And Dr. Hales shows conclusively that the ark had the capacity of bearing forty-two thousand four hundred and thirteen tons. He says: Can we doubt of it being sufficient to contain eight persons and about [pg 111] two hundred and fifty pair of four-footed animals, together with all the subsistence necessary for twelve months, with the fowls of the air and such reptiles and insects as can not live in water? Besides places for the beasts and birds and their provisions, Noah might find room in the third story for thirty-six cabins occupied by household utensils, instruments of husbandry, books, grains and seeds, for a kitchen, a hall, and a space of about forty-eight cubits in length to walk in. In addition to all this, it is conceded, by the very best minds conversant with ship building, that Moses' description of the dimensions of the ark are the descriptions of one of the very best floating vessels that ever rested upon the waters. This fact has puzzled the minds of many unbelievers who seem to think there was but little scientific knowledge in that early period. They do not believe that God was with Noah. He Was.