For a Global Flood, the Time Was Much too Short. /
Reply, Gerhard Markwein 00 2007-09-07
(Texts enclosed in a black frame are quoted from visitors to the site or other authors.)
... In my circle of acquaintances, we discuss your account of a global Flood (Chapter 08:
The Reorganization of Heaven and Earth. Note FH). I myself am a believing Christian like you, but I have
always seen this biblical report as referring to a local event. There are three reasons for this:
1. The origin of such great amounts of water for a global flood.
I have not read any explanation until now that could answer this question convincingly and in line with the
Bible. Only your idea of connecting the “division of the waters” in Gen 1, 6-7 with the flood offers a
relatively reasonable if ambiguous foundation for dealing with this view of the problem.
2. The period of 40 days was much too short for a global flood.
If one keeps in mind that there were only 40 days - if we follow your view - to cover the whole globe with
water to a height of 5000 meters (the height of Mt. Ararat), then it wouldn’t have been rain, but the water
must have fallen from the sky like a waterfall. And the ark would have had to have been a submarine if it was
not to capsize and go down.
3. And finally the receding of this enormous amount of water. According to Gen 8,3 the
waters receded from the earth after the rainfall stopped. If it was a local flood, then that is no problem.
Then the water just drained away into the neighboring areas. But you run into difficulty if it was a global
flood. If the whole earth was covered with water up to a height of 5000 meters, there is no place to which the
waters could have flowed and the earth would have remained a “water planet” since then.
The last two of these questions are therefore still unanswered - and, in my view, cannot be answered.
First, thank you very much for your comments and your completely plausible argumentation. If I
understand it correctly, the first of the three questions cited by you was already more or less answered by my
account in chapter 08.
(See also Chapter 08: “The reorganization of heaven and
earth.”)
But since the Flood is only a secondary issue in chapter 08, in order to answer your two other
questions, this excerpt will be added here for a better overview for those readers who have not yet read this
text.
The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.
Gen 7,5 Noah did according to all that the LORD had commanded him. 7,6 Now Noah
was six hundred years old when the flood of water came upon the earth. 7,7 Then Noah and his sons and his wife
and his sons’ wives with him entered the ark because of the water of the flood. 7,8 Of clean animals and
animals that are not clean and birds and everything that creeps on the ground, 7,9 there went into the ark to
Noah by twos, male and female, as God had commanded Noah. 7,10 It came about after the seven days, that the
water of the flood came upon the earth. 7,11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month,
on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the
floodgates of the sky were opened. 7,12 The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.
Gen 7, 5-12;
All the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered.
Gen 7,17 Then the flood came upon the earth for forty days, and the water
increased and lifted up the ark, so that it rose above the earth. 7,18 The water prevailed and increased
greatly upon the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 7,19 The water prevailed more and
more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. 7,20 The
water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered. Gen 7,17-20;
The reliability of this biblical report is doubted by many, however without subjecting text
and context to a closer analysis. So, again and again the question is raised where these inconceivably large
quantities of water shall come from.
We find now in Gen 1,6-8 and parallel passages quite a plausible explanation for that.
God separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above.
Gen 1,6 Then God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the
waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." 1,7 God made the expanse, and separated
the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it
was so. 1,8 God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.Gen 1, 6-
8;
The heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and in the midst of the water.
2Ptr 3,5 For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of
God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and in the midst of the water,
3,6 through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. 2Ptr 3, 5- 6;
At the beginning of Creation the earth was completely covered with water up to the highest
elevations. In the subsequent text we learn then that God created a "firmament" within this water by
separating these waters round the globe from the ground of the earth, so that a space free from water was
formed between the remaining waters on the ground and the large part of the mass of water above this space –
which we call today atmosphere.
(See also Excursus 12: “The Creation.”)
This "separating" of the waters can be imagined in various ways. It would be conceivable that the water was "raised" up to a height of approximately 400 km. In this part of our atmosphere (ionosphere/exosphere) most of the satellites rotate round the earth today. The consequence would be that this water would have frozen to ice on account of the low temperatures and would have surrounded the planet there in its orbit as a kind of "protective shield" - due to the low force of gravity at this height.
Can you, with Him, spread out the skies, Strong as a molten mirror?
Job 37,16 "Do you know about the layers of the thick clouds, The wonders of
one perfect in knowledge, 37,17 You whose garments are hot, When the land is still because of the south wind?
37,18 "Can you, with Him, spread out the skies, Strong as a molten mirror? Job 37,16-18;
However, the Scriptures teaches us that God always acts in his Creation also through the
regularities of this Creation. And here the thought suggests itself that these waters quite simply evaporated
as a result of extremely strong influence of heat of extraterrestrial provenience at the beginning of its
existence, and that in that way a jacket of clouds was formed round the earth. This variant has, however, the
disadvantage that such a cloud cover – even if one starts out from a height of up to 400 or 500 km - would
not be able to hold enough water in order to explain the phenomenon of the Flood.
No matter in which state of aggregation this water may have been – liquid, solid or gaseous - this jacket of
water, ice or clouds, these are now those waters which - according to biblical count approximately 1650 years
later - at the Flood, fell upon the earth again in the form of continuous rain for forty days and forty
nights. And consistently it also says then in the report about the Flood, above, in Gen 7,19, "The water
prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were
covered". So, the earth was again completely covered by water, as it was the case at the beginning of
Creation.
As we read below, in Gen 8,3, in the following one hundred and fifty days probably the greatest tectonic
movements and isostatic adjustments took place – for the most part below water. The immense pressure of the
mass of water upon the relatively thin crust of the earth, formed new, huge ocean basins, lifted entire
continents and displaced tectonic plates until the earth has reached the form in which it basically presents
itself to us today. At that time possibly also the division of a central continent that was situated at the
Northern and Southern Atlantic threshold, into an Afro-European and an North and South American part took
place.
Therefore it can also be assumed that before the Flood the surface of the land in relation to the surface of
the seas was much larger than today, and that a major part of the water in our present seas flew into these
seas at the time of the Flood and that the ocean basins were "torn open" in this short time. (A
scientific treatment of this subject can be found in the book "The Flood" by Prof. Dr. J. C.
Whitcomb and Prof. Dr. H. M. Morris with TELOS – publishers, Scientific Series).
As we will learn then in Gen 8,3-4, the waters of the Flood decreased again after one hundred and fifty days,
and the ark rested upon the mountain of Ararat.
At the end of one hundred and fifty days the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat.
Gen 8,3 and the water receded steadily from the earth, and at the end of one
hundred and fifty days the water decreased. 8,4 In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month,
the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat. Gen 8, 3- 4;
Since a denial of the report of the Flood on principle is hardly possible any more today, as
we know similar reports from the Sumerians, the Babylonians (the epic of Gilgamesh), and many others, the
criticism concentrates on the various concomitant circumstances of this event. Thus, among other things, also
the global dimension of the Flood is contested. Some people want to see here a locally restricted
meteorological phenomenon at best. Now, this would be conceivable if this area were situated in a huge basin,
enclosed by mountains, so that the "local" rainfalls could not have flown off.
But due to the mention of the mountain of "Ararat", in Gen 8,3, we know still today, where the ark
was situated at that time. This mountain is a part of the mountain crest in the Armenian highlands which today
belong to Turkey in their western part. While the tableland is situated at a height of 1500 to 2000 m, the
mountain Ararat itself rises to a height of 5165 m. Therefore it is a physical regularity and from the
geological point of view evident that if the water level – as it is described in Gen 7,19 – was above
these mountain peaks, the water must have also overflown every other point of the planet that was just as high
as this mountain, and that we have therefore to start out from a global flood.
Thus far the text from chapter 08 on the amounts of water at the Flood. Now we can turn to G.
Markwein’s second question regarding the period of 40 days and reflect on the extent to which it was
possible that the whole world could be flooded in such a short time to a height of approximately 5000 meters.
We must first, however, make a fundamental statement as to why a global Flood should not be rejected in
principle - at least by a Bible-believing Christian. In Gen 7,19-20 we have the statement that all the high
mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered - indeed, even that the water level was 15 cubits
higher, i.e., about 3 meters, than the mountains, so that these were entirely covered:
All the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered.
Gen 7,17 Then the flood came upon the earth for forty days, and the water
increased and lifted up the ark, so that it rose above the earth. 7,18 The water prevailed and increased
greatly upon the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 7,19 The water prevailed more and
more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. 7,20 The
water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered. Gen 7,17-20;
From a biblical point of view, there is thus no doubt that the water actually did cover the
whole earth and was even 3 meters above the highest mountain peaks. Indeed, a local flood is the preferred
theory in science, whereby, to be sure, these quite concrete statements of the Bible above are completely
ignored and there is speculation concerning the melting of glaciers at the end of the last ice age, an inrush
of water into the Black Sea, an eruption of Santorini and the subsequent tsunami, among other things. The
height of the water, at which one arrives by this method, is a ridiculous 100-170 m.
Those scientists who accept the Flood report of the Bible but nevertheless argue for a local flood hold that
the water filled the valley basin around Mt. Ararat and thus carried the ark up the mountain. They overlook
the fact, however, that, at 5165 meters, Ararat is the highest mountain in the whole area (the highest
mountain in Turkey) and therefore the water would have “overflowed” all the mountains around it and would
have spread out across the world from there before it would have reached the peak of Ararat. This is to say
nothing of the fact that these scientists have no explanation for the statement in Gen 7,19 that all the
high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered.
Thus, whereas the background is clear for Bible-believing Christians, these brothers and sisters obviously
wonder how to explain these immense quantities of water within only 40 days and nights.
As G. Markwein states completely correctly in his comments cited at the beginning, this is not a problem as
such. All life on earth - except for Noah and his family - was condemned to death by God. And, as far as that
is concerned, it makes no difference at all whether they were killed by drowning or by torrents of water from
the heavens, which must have weighed as much as boulders. But in this context we must also always consider the
safety of the ark in these waters and, therefore, one cannot assume that the water came down like a true
waterfall. Therefore, it must have been a rain - a very heavy rain, to be sure, but nevertheless a rain that
did not place the ark in danger.
If we take that as the starting point for our reflections, we can simply ask what amounts of precipitation
were actually necessary. As G. Merkwein remarks correctly above, the water had to reach a height of at least
5000 meters in order to cover Ararat. Precipitation was thus needed for approximately 5000 cubic meters or 5
million liters per square meter in 40 days and nights. If we convert that into days and hours, we come to an
amount of about 125,000 liters per day or 5,208 liters per hour and square meter.
Although we live precisely in a time of relatively heavy amounts of precipitation, such quantities are
completely inconceivable. The heaviest amount of precipitation in the world occurs in India, but even there,
rain does not go beyond 60-70 liters per hour and square meter. And that occurs only for a few days. In the
heavy precipitation in central Europe at present, it was about 300 liters per square meter for only 60 hours.
Therefore, one can ask with G. Markwein whether an amount of precipitation of more than 5,000 liters per hour
and square meter can still be called rain or if we are talking of waterfalls that came from the sky.
To answer this question, we will carry out a mental experiment. Many languages have the colloquial expression,
“It’s pouring” to describe heavy rain. This is, of course, derived from pouring from a watering can,
which is thus completely comparable to a heavy rain, and such a watering can therefore perhaps serve as a
measuring device for our experiment. We thus take a completely normal watering can with the usual capacity of
ten liters. The rose with its holes on the spout of the can has a diameter of about 10 cm. To make it even
more vivid, we will also take a plastic tube, closed at the bottom and also with a diameter of 10 cm (e.g.
100er drainpipe) 1 meter in length and thus also with a capacity of about 10 liters.
We will now fill the watering can with water and then pour the water through the complete rose into the
plastic pipe standing on end. We will measure the time of beginning the pouring until the end, when the can is
empty, with a stopwatch. We can thus establish that we - somewhat differently according to the size and
density of the holes in the rose - needed about ½ to 2 minutes for this. We have thus simulated an amount of
precipitation here that corresponds to 10 liters on nearly (because both the rose as well as the pipe are
round and not square) 100 square centimeters.
Since the same result would be reached under equal conditions in equal proportions on any large area
whatsoever, we would thus have converted an amount of precipitation of 1000 liters in 2 minutes per square
meter. If we now measure the time somewhat more liberally by 5 minutes and thus reduce somewhat the heaviness
of the precipitation, we come to about 12,000 liters per square meter and hour or a theoretical height of
11,500 meters in 40 days, and thus more than double the amount of rain that we calculated for the Flood on the
basis of the height of Ararat (5208 liters per hour and square meter).
From the above, it can be seen that such precipitation is indeed inconceivably heavy for us today, but it is
still rain and not a “waterfall” at all. The danger to the ark was thus also minimal. What was in fact
deadly for the people outside the ark was the speed of the water’s rise: several meters per hour. The
highest of the buildings of the time at the lowest points of the world would probably also have been under
water after 1-2 hours and no more rescue was possible. Also, those people who could flee to the mountains
would be caught and drowned by the water at the peak at the latest. This also shows the divine purposes of
this measure: not one person of this wicked generation would be left alive.
And did not spare the ancient world, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly.
2Ptr 2,4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into
hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; 2,5 and did not spare the ancient
world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the
world of the ungodly; 2Ptr 2, 4- 5;
Until the day that Noah entered the ark and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away.
Mt 24,37 "For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of
Noah. 24,38 "For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving
in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 24,39 and they did not understand until the flood
came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Mt 24,37-39;
The statement at the end of the above text in Mt 24,39: “so will the coming of the Son of
Man be” does not mean that we should expect a Flood once again at the second coming of the Lord. The promise
of God further below in Gen 9,11 saves us from that. Here, the Lord wants simply to point out that as those
before the flood who did not pay attention to their way of life and the signs of the time - in particular Noah’s
activities! - lived their lives, let God be a good man and were then drowned in the Flood, so it would also be
in the end times before his coming. Most people today are already no longer in a position to understand the
reality and decisive importance of this message. They believe that they need to occupy themselves with more
important things and only at the end of their lives will they see that they have actually passed life by
completely. But then it will be too late.
To come back to our experiment, one could argue that, given the amounts of water calculated above, the earth
at that time would have had to have been flooded at a much higher level. But we must read the text closely
here as well. It says in Gen 7,19 that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered
with water. Thus, it was not only Ararat but all high mountains everywhere. It is indeed uncertain whether
there was a Mount Everest then, at 8,850 meters above sea level. But there were probably also mountains that
were considerably higher than Ararat. And since in this altitude there was much less land or mountains, the
volume of water would have had to increase very considerably in order to be able to cover the mountains.
Moreover, we must consider that we measure the height of a mountain in relation to sea level. Before the
Flood, there was probably much less water on earth and in the oceans - insofar as there were oceans at all -
so that the oceans were also much shallower. Thus, the current height of a mountain should probably be partly
more than doubled and thus the volume of water required would also increase. It thus appears completely
plausible that the roughly 12,000 liters per square meter and hour could be the amount of precipitation that
carried the ark up Ararat and covered the whole world at the time with water within 40 days and nights up to
more than 3 meters above the highest mountain peaks.
Also the existence of the ark itself, which cannot be found in the other reports about the Flood, was often
disputed in the past. However, there is a report of a reconnaissance plane from world War II, which flew over
this tableland on its route and which caught sight of a rectangular, dark thing in the upper part of Ararat,
which stuck out from the surrounding ice sheet on account of its straight-lined boundary. This crate obviously
lay in an inclined position and stuck out of the ice on one side. It had a visible proportion of about 100 m
in length and 20 m in width, with still estimated 50 m of the one end being covered by ice. The pilot flew
several times over this place and could also take some photographs.
After the war there were some attempts made to rediscover this object. But as it seems, at that time the ice
had probably melted deeper than normally on account of an extremely hot period of weather and therefore gave a
view over the ark. In the meantime the ice sheet has again risen in such a way that it covers everything, and
nothing could be seen from the airplane any more.
If one compares the dimensions of the object discovered with those of the ark in the Bible, one comes to the
conviction that this object that the pilot had seen there must have been the ark. According to Gen 6,15 Noah
got the order to make a crate of fir wood. The dimensions should be: 300 cubits in length, 50 cubits in width,
and 30 cubits in height. If one converts the length of the cubit with approximately 50 cm (Ezk 40,5), one gets
the dimensions 150 m in length, 25 m in width, and 15 m in height, which would roughly correspond to the data
given by the pilot from World War II.
The argument by G. Markwein concerning this question in the reply cited at the beginning is completely valid. If the entire globe had been covered by water up to a height of 3 meters above the highest mountains there would actually be no place in the world to where this water could have receded. Therefore, if we take the statements of the Bible seriously - and we should - something must have happened to the surface structure of the planet in the 150 days after the rainfall. The text of Gen 8,1 says that God caused a wind to pass over the earth and then the water subsided. But it also says in Gen 8,3: “And the water receded steadily from the earth.”
And the water receded steadily from the earth.
Gen 8,1 But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were
with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided. 8,2 Also the
fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained; 8,3
and the water receded steadily from the earth, and at the end of one hundred and fifty days the water
decreased. 8,4 In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of
Ararat. Gen 8, 1- 4;
One can assume that it was not only the wind that dried up the water but that these quantities
of water had nevertheless found a way to “recede” from the earth. It is a physical law that water flows
only to where there is some open space. And as already explained above, a change in the earth’s surface must
therefore have occurred in these 150 days - and also still afterwards - which greatly increased the space that
was available before the Flood.
And here we must still take note of another law of physics that certainly occurred in connection with a global
flood. These immense amounts of water, which poured on the earth, had an immense weight. Since the earth’s
surface is quite thin in relation to the planet, the least stable places of this surface must have broken open
and the pressure of the water must have spread the magma that gushed out, lifted whole continents and shifted
tectonic plates, until the earth had reached that form that we essentially know today. Moreover, this formed
enormous trenches that were continually made wider and deeper by the receding water. These trenches are our
current oceans, which are deeper at some points than the height of the highest mountains on the surface of the
earth. Thus, the Vitiaz Deep in the Mariana trench (western Pacific) is the deepest point of the earth, with a
depth of 11,034 meters.
And these new trenches were that space, which was not there before the Flood, in which the waters could “recede”
after the Flood. According to this view, our current oceans are nothing more than the waters of the Flood that
tore open the earth’s surface and thus formed its bed in magma.
As was already mentioned above, we have the promise of God in Scripture that there will not be another Flood of this kind on earth that will destroy all people.
Never again there shall be a flood to destroy the earth.
Gen 9,9 "Now behold, I Myself do establish My covenant with you, and with
your descendants after you; 9,10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and
every beast of the earth with you; of all that comes out of the ark, even every beast of the earth. 9,11
"I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the
flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth." Gen 9, 9-11;
My bow in the cloud, it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth.
Gen 9,12 God said, "This is the sign of the covenant which I am making
between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations; 9,13 I set
My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. 9,14 "It
shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud,
9,15 and I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and
never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh. 9,16 "When the bow is in the cloud,
then I will look upon it, to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all
flesh that is on the earth."
9,17 And God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and
all flesh that is on the earth." Gen 9,12-17;
This "bow in the cloud" is, of course, the rainbow, and also here an interesting
connection arises with the view described above of a water jacket in the atmosphere before the Flood.
It is perceptible from the text of Gen 9,12-14 that this "bow" was something completely new for Noah
and his family. They had never seen anything like that before. But from that the conclusion can be drawn that
there had not been any rainbow either on the earth before the Flood.
If we now take a look at the physical conditions for this atmospheric-optical phenomenon, we find out that a
rainbow can be seen when the sun which is in the back of the observer shines upon a rain cloud or rain wall
which is in front of him. Due to the refraction of the sunrays in the rain drops the white sunlight is
dispersed into the spectral colors, and the reflection directs the rays into the eye of the observer.
So, the basic condition for the formation of a rainbow is the direct incidence of sunrays. If we now proceed,
as explained at the beginning, from the assumption of a worldwide closed water/ice jacket before the Flood,
there was translucent light on the earth at that time all right, but no direct insolation. And therefore a
formation of a rainbow was not possible either.
Moreover, this "protective shield" round the planet before the Flood could also give an answer to
another question. The statements of natural science about the age of mankind are in complete contradiction to
those of the Bible. While the Bible allows the conclusion that man (not the universe!) was created about 5800
years ago, geologists calculate with 1 – 5 millions of years. Arthur E. Wilder-Smith describes in his book
"Herkunft und Zukunft des Menschen” (Hännsler Publishers, Stuttgart) [Man’s Origin, Man’s Destiny,
Wheaton, Ill.: Shaw], page 119 and the following pages, the finding (with photograph) of a clearly preserved
footprint of a brontosaur in the riverbed of the Paluxy River (Texas, USA) from the Cretaceous period
(approximately 140 million years ago). At a distance of some meters from that there are human footprints in
the same formation, which therefore must have been produced at the same time. But with that the 1 – 5
million years of the geologists are obviously disproved. So, either man must have lived together with the
saurians already 140 million years ago or the saurians only 1 – 5 million years ago together with man.
If we now take a look at the measuring methods of natural science, we find out that for instance the
"dating method C14" (Radiocarbon method) - a so-called "short-time meter" for measuring
the last ten to twelve thousand years -, which is used for the age determination of the finds of human bones
and which thus forms the basis for the scientific theories about the age of the man of today, proceeds from
the assumption that all living creatures absorb with the air also radio active carbon (14C) –
that is to say take it up with their bodies - and are due to that in balance with the C14–content in the air
as long as they live.
When a living being dies, the metabolic process between the dead body and the air stops, and the radio active
C14 which remains in the body starts its process of decay. The advance of this disintegration is measured
then. If there is still a large amount of C14 left in the bones, the body has been dead only for a short time.
If the residual quantity is low, the process of decay has been going on already for a long time, and
therefore, the body has been dead for a long time. That means, much C14 signifies young age, little C14
signifies old age. However, one has to mention that C14 is produced high up in the stratosphere by a
bombardment of the air with cosmic rays. These rays react with atmospheric nitrogen and form radioactive
carbon - namely C14 - which, then - in the lower layers of the atmosphere - is breathed in by all living
beings with the air and is absorbed by the plants. Proceeding from the assumption that the earth was
surrounded by a water/ice jacket up to the Flood, which, of course, had filtered the cosmic irradiation
considerably and might have even prevented it, the reliability of the above-mentioned dating method has to be
gravely doubted and /or is not safe any more at all.
All finds of bones of living beings that died before or at the Flood – so for instance also saurians –
would not have taken up any radio active carbon during their lifetimes because of the filter effect of the
jacket, and would have thus a content of C14 of almost zero and would therefore be assigned an age of millions
of years according to this method, although they died perhaps only four or five thousand years ago. This
should at least make us think. And precisely this filter effect of the water/ice jacket as protection against
the radio active radiation could have also been the reason for the amazingly old age – up to 969 years -,
which those people lived who had been born before the Flood.
(See also Table 01: “Chronological table from Adam to Jacob.”)