Ancient Floods and the Age Of The Earth

by Bridget on September 15, 2012

Throughout the world there are many creation myths, these myths represent the ideas, beliefs, and ancient traditions of the select groups of people. However, isn’t it interesting that each mythology has a story surrounding a great epic flood? There is evidence of a worldwide flood; this evidence can be found in numerous places, from the Giants Causeway in Ireland to the Grand Canyon in the United States. Other creation stories are used to explain the age of the earth without using science.

Creationists and the Age of the Earth

Creationists are known for their opposition to the theory of evolution as well as the age of the earth. They do not believe that the earth is over a billion years old; they do not even believe that the earth is over a million years old. They base their reasoning on the timeline presented in the Bible. This makes the earth around 6,000 years old. This is one of their arguments against the theory of evolution. How can a species have time to evolve in just 6,000 years? They’re right; there is not time for adaptations in such a small span of time. However, their calculations are obviously off.

Genealogies

The theory regarding the age of the earth is mostly based on genealogies. The bases are the chrono-genealogies located in Genesis 5 and Genesis 11. However although argued to be complete, this is not the case, and there are many gaps and the translations to not add up entirely. From there more numbers are thorn out regarding the year of the world, how long Abraham’s descendants were in Egypt and how many years after Exodus the Temple was built. This theory was first purported by Archbishop Ussher who went through the genealogies. However he assumed that each patriarch lived for exactly 365.25 days long and that they all died the day before their next birthday. He also assumed that the genealogies were complete. There were many names left out for the sake of brevity, which is very common in biblical genealogies, and key terms like son and father have much broader meanings in the original Hebrew than the corresponding English. The Hebrew word for son can also mean grandson, great grandson, and descendant. Just as the Hebrew word for father can mean grandfather, great grandfather, and ancestor.

Other Debates

Another hotly debated subject is the biblical flood. This flood also known as Noah’s flood or in earlier mythology as the Epic of Gilgamesh is actually discussed in many mythologies. Throughout the world ancient civilizations have theorized that a mass flood occurred. There is evidence for this throughout the world as well. In Greece for example the area known as Thessaloniki, which means of the sea, used to be underwater. There are many other areas that are believed to have been submerged underwater and geological data proves this. However, the Grand Canyon may have different origins; some believe it may have been caused by flood, others people a meteorological event occurred. This is also the case with the Giants Causeway located in Ireland. One thing that all can agree on though, is the fact there is definitive evidence that a worldwide flood occurred.

When it comes to the age of the earth and evidence of a world wide flood there are many theories. The age of the earth stands to be a debate between science and creation science, while there is agreement about the fact that at some point the world was flooded. The problem is that interpreting a book that was written hundreds of years ago with our knowledge today as well as a different language is very difficult. And it is impossible to know exactly what people meant as they were writing. But that is truly the difference between science and faith.

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