Summations Only

This proposed thread would continue the one started by Moose, but with a slightly different perspective.I feel the evidence does not support a global flood, but others obviously disagree. This thread is a place for them to present their evidence.But biblical scholars place the flood at about 4,350 years ago. Not at the K-T boundary, over 60 million years ago, and not at the Cambrian explosion over 500 million years ago. Further, there is no evidence whatsoever of humans being around at those distant dates.So please limit the evidence presented to support a recent flood to recent time periods. This means you will need to deal with soils, not rocks; with archaeology, not geology; and with radiocarbon dating, not other radiometric dating techniques. It also means that historical evidence will be applicable, such as the records from ancient Egypt.To get started, archaeologists have been excavating into these recent soil layers for about 150 years. I have excavated probably 100 sites that cross-cut the approximate 4,350 year time period. My colleagues and I have found no evidence for a global flood (massive erosional or depositional features). Rather, we generally find continuity of human cultures, fauna and flora, sedimentation, and most telling of all we find continuity of mtDNA. If there had been a flood at this time, one would expect to find the previous mtDNA haplotypes cut off and to be replaced by haplotypes characteristic of the eastern Mediterranean, representing Noah's female companions.

It would seem if one were to challenge the efficacy of dating methods, one would have to provide evidence to that effect. And one would have to counter all of the evidence that suggests the dating methods, particularly radiocarbon dating, are incorrect.Just suggesting the dating methods are inaccurate isn't enough. If one wants to play scientists, one must follow the rules of science and the first rule is to bring data.

I have to rely on creationists to interpret the bible. I am only responding to what they claim.The claims here can be simplified to just two: 1) the date of the flood is recent, not millions of years ago; and 2) the flood was worldwide.As a consequence of these claims, there should be evidence in the soils of that flood, and as such these claims can be easily tested by archaeologists, as they deal with that time period all the time.Archaeologists do not find the evidence in recent soils of a global flood. To me this is a simple but conclusive test.==========Evidence of the first claim, that of a recent flood:2252 BC -- layevangelism.com
2304 BC -- Answers in Genesis (+/- 11 years).
2350 BC -- Morris, H. Biblical Creationism. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1993.
2370 BC -- TalkOrigins.com
2500 BC -- nwcreation.net
2978-3128 BC -- asa3.org
3300 BC -- biblediscoveries.com
3537 BC -- Setterfield (1999)If you disagree, these are the folks you should be debating.

Feel free to do so.But since you are here, why don't you try and address the two important points I raised:If the flood was recent and worldwide, as is claimed, why don't archaeologists find evidence for it?

I posted this above, and you ignored it. Evidence supporting a recent flood:2252 BC -- layevangelism.com
2304 BC -- Answers in Genesis (+/- 11 years).
2350 BC -- Morris, H. Biblical Creationism. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1993.
2370 BC -- TalkOrigins.com
2500 BC -- nwcreation.net
2978-3128 BC -- asa3.org
3300 BC -- biblediscoveries.com
3537 BC -- Setterfield (1999) That much water moving around will leave evidence.One example of this is the evidence left by the Channeled Scablands of eastern Washington. Here is a good link: Good LinkThis is the problem you face: We can see evidence of floods at the end of the last ice age, maybe 12-14,000 years ago. We can tell a lot about those floods, as that link shows.Why can't we see similar evidence for a much larger worldwide flood that was a third as old?

Why not?The massive amounts of rain would quickly seek lower levels, and we know from recent disasters how devastating that can be.But it is up to creationists to present their evidence.Haven't seen any here yet.

One problem with this scenario is that these fossils are spread over a billion or so years; they are far from being the same age.Another problem is that we can see evolution in the fossils. These layers of different ages show a progression of critters from older to younger. This progression had to take a lot of time to develop.Also, floods don't produce fossils. Shellfish fossils are produced in oceans, and sometimes lakes or marshes. The most a flood could do is move a fossil. Ignoring the two problems above, what are the odds that the fossils could be ripped up from their original locations and sorted out by time and type in their new locations by chaotic flood waters?

It was probably close to what it is now, around 29,000 feet.This is another bible story that isn't true: about 4,000 years ago the continents were about the same as they are now. To get to the single mass of land you have to go back about 250 million years.Are you seriously claiming there were people living back then?Or are you just claiming that the last masses rushed into their current positions in the last 4,000 years and then just as suddenly slowed down to their current rates of movement?(No wonder no one takes you seriously.)

Then the text is wrong.You have an insurmountable problem here: the bible says there was one land mass when humans were cavorting about. The time frame is off by some 250 million years.But if you claim that this all happened in the past 4,350 years or so then you have to explain how the speed of the continents moving about suddenly slowed down when scientists started watching, and further, where all the heat went as continental movement on that order would have generated enough heat to cook things. Oh, don't forget the earthquakes. Movement of the plates a few inches to a few feet cause major earthquakes. What would movement on the order of thousands of miles during the past 4,000 years or so have done? Wouldn't anybody have noticed?There are just too many mistakes to take that account seriously, and all your "what ifs" don't make it any better.

I think perhaps you underestimate the fine clay sediments and their tendency to remain in suspension in moving waters, and to settle out only when the waters are calm.What you are suggesting is that there would be evidence left in some places by a global flood that should be seen in the soils, either as erosion or deposition.I would suggest that the evidence would be more widespread than you have posited. Certainly the erosion should be visible in a lot of areas.But if the flood was worldwide, then the depositional evidence should be close to worldwide. If there was water some 29,000 feet above current sea levels, that increase and subsequent decrease would have to be accompanied by significant water movement. I don't believe that all evidence could be erased in just 4,000+ years. There should be fine sedimentary deposits close to worldwide dating to about 4,350 years ago.We have the evidence from the channeled scablands of eastern Washington of earlier floods that we can use as a guide. Those post-glacial floods would have been much smaller than Noah's flood, yet we see evidence that allows us to track the paths of those floods, and to come up with approximate dates while we don't see the same evidence for Noah's flood--much larger in size and only a third the age.There is something clearly lacking in the evidence for a recent global flood.

Good points.But the flood had to occur at some time in the past. And that time had to include humans.This would seem to eliminate the Cambrian and the K-T boundary, two time periods favored by posters here but millions of years before humans walked the earth.What it comes down to is that flood has to be at some specific time--it can't always be "not here, over there!" -- which is what we get from many creationists.That's the old shell game.So at some point creationists should figure out when the flood occurred and let us all look for the evidence at that time.Otherwise one might begin to think that it's all a myth.

Let's get back to the topic of "Evidence for a recent flood."So far I haven't seen any serious evidence offered in support of a recent flood. Have I missed something?

The original post specifically dealt with a recent global flood, in the general range of 4,350 years ago. It invited evidence from creationists supporting this general date.Here is a summary of creationists's responses (along with other pertinent comments). Many off-topic comments have been omitted.

Message 7. ICANT goes off on a totally unrelated tangent. No mention even of a recent flood, let alone any evidence.

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Message 11. ICANT replies with again no mention of a recent flood.

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Message 13. ICANT replies with again no mention of a recent flood.

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Message 15. ICANT replies with a comment that no date is given in the bible for the flood.

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Message 17. ICANT replies, negating the idea of a recent flood and states that the flood isn’t dated in the bible.

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Message 23. Chuck77 says he is gathering evidence for the thread.

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Message 27. Portillo goes completely off topic and discusses fossils.

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Message 34. ICANT responds with information on the Bay of Fundy. No mention of the age of the flood.

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Message 41. ICANT continues with off-topic remarks.

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Message 44. ICANT continues with off-topic remarks.

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Message 45. ICANT repeats his claim that we don’t know the date of the flood.

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Message 49. ICANT repeats his claim that we don’t know the date of the flood.

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Message 51. ICANT repeats his claim that we don’t know the date of the flood.

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Message 54. ICANT repeats his claim that we don’t know the date of the flood.

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Message 59. kbertsche notes that biblical scholars are all over the map on the date of the flood

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Message 70. kbertsche discusses the range of creationist beliefs and suggests they are appropriate for a bible study thread.

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Message 74. Portillo with off-topic comments.

Summary: No evidence has been presented supporting a recent global flood.The problem we have here is that the flood, if it took place at all, took place in comparatively recent history, after the invention of writing. That alone eliminates all of the K-T boundary and Cambrian explosion dates. Humans weren't even around then!But it is interesting that nobody is supporting a recent date for the flood. It seems that folks are more comfortable having a very ambiguous date for the flood so that it can't be disproved."It's not over here, it's over there! No, over there."That might make good apologetics but it is lousy science.Anyone want to try to support a recent flood, something under 10,000 years ago?

Over in the Great Debate thread Buz writes: Hey Buz! Here's your chance!This thread is dedicated to evidence for a recent flood.Care to contribute some of that evidence?(I just thought: are you banned from these threads? If so, maybe we could do a thread elsewhere on the same topic?)

To our creationist friends...Why can't you come up with a date for the flood?Common sense would seem to tell us that it occurred during historic times, after the development of writing.Certainly it came after the development, however that occurred, of modern humans.The begats should offer some clues as well.Why then are we getting age estimates back to the Cambrian (>500 million years ago)?Didn't the flood occur during recent, that is historic and human, times? Certainly something under 8,000 or so years?