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. 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 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 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.