In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood

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For example, a worldwide flood would uproot and bury preflood forests. Afterward, less carbon would be available to enter the atmosphere from decaying vegetation. With less carbon-12 to dilute the carbon-14 continually forming from nitrogen in the upper atmosphere, the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 in the atmosphere would increase. If the atmosphere’s ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 has doubled since the flood and we did not know it, radiocarbon ages of things that lived soon after the flood would appear to be one half-life (or 5,730 years) older than their true ages. If that ratio quadrupled, organic remains would appear 11,460 (2 x 5,730) years older, etc.  Therefore, a “radiocarbon year” would not correspond to an actual year.2

As explained in Figure 150, recent measurements show that the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 has been building up in the atmosphere.3 However, for the last 3,500 years, the increase in the ratio has been extremely slight.

Radiocarbon dating of vertical sequences of organic-rich layers at 714 locations worldwide has consistently shown a surprising result.4 Radiocarbon ages do not increase steadily with depth, as one might expect. Instead, they increase at an accelerating rate. In other words, the concentration of carbon-14 is unexpectedly low in the lower organic layers. As one moves to higher and higher layers, this concentration increases, but at a decreasing rate.

Tree-ring dating allows us to infer how the atmospheric concentration of carbon-14 changed in the past. Some types of trees growing at high elevations with a steady supply of moisture will reliably add only one ring each year. In other environments, multiple rings can be added in a year.5 A tree ring’s thickness depends on the tree’s growing conditions, which vary from year to year. Some rings may show frost or fire damage. By comparing sequences of ring thicknesses in two different trees, a correspondence can sometimes be shown. Trees of the same species that simultaneously grew within a few hundred miles of each other may have similar patterns. Trees of different species or trees growing in different environments have less similar patterns.

Claims are frequently made that wood growing today can be matched up with some scattered pieces of dead wood so that tree-ring counts can be extended back more than 8,600 years. This may not be correct. These claimed “long chronologies” begin with either living trees or dead wood that can be accurately dated by historical methods.6 This carries the chronology back perhaps 3,500 years. Then the more questionable links are established based on the judgment of a tree-ring specialist. Sometimes “missing” rings are added.7 Each tree ring’s width varies greatly around the tree’s circumference. Also, parts of a ring may be dead wood. Standard statistical techniques could show how well the dozen supposedly overlapping tree-ring sequences fit. However, tree-ring specialists have refused to subject their judgments to these statistical tests and would not release their data, so others can do these statistical tests.8 Even less reliable techniques claim to be able to calibrate carbon-14 dating back 26,000 years or more.

Several laboratories in the world are now equipped to perform a much improved radiocarbon dating procedure. Using atomic accelerators, a specimen’s carbon-14 atoms can now be actually counted, giving a more precise radiocarbon date with even smaller samples. The standard, but less accurate, radiocarbon dating technique only counts the rare disintegrations of carbon-14 atoms, which are sometimes confused with other types of disintegrations.

This new atomic accelerator technique has consistently detected at least small amounts of carbon-14 in every organic specimen—even materials that evolutionists claim are millions of years old, such as coal. This small, consistent amount is found so often among various specimens that contamination can probably be ruled out. Ancient human skeletons, when dated by this new “accelerator mass spectrometer” technique, give surprisingly recent dates. In one study of eleven sets of ancient human bones, all were dated at about 5,000 radiocarbon years or less!10

Radiocarbon dating of supposedly very ancient bones should provide valuable information. Why is such testing rare? Researchers naturally do not waste money on a technique that destroys their specimen and provides no specific age. Therefore, most researchers do not radiocarbon date any organic specimen they think is older than 100,000 years, even if it still contains carbon. All carbon-14 that was once in anything older than 100,000 radiocarbon years would have decayed; its age could not be determined. However, if a bone an evolutionist thinks is a million years old contains any detectable carbon-14, the bone is probably less than 100,000 radiocarbon years. Figure 150, shows why those “radiocarbon years” correspond to a much younger true age.)

Very precise measurements now show that most fossils—regardless of presumed “geologic age”—have roughly the same ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12. (This includes fossil fuels: coal, oil, and methane.) Therefore, this former life must have been living at about the same time—less than 100,000 years ago. Because almost all fossils are preserved in water deposited sediments, all this former life was probably buried in a fairly recent, gigantic flood.12

Radiocarbon dating is becoming increasingly important in interpreting the past. However, one must understand how it works and especially how a flood affected radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon ages less than 3,500 years are probably accurate. Ages around 40,000 radiocarbon years, which are typical of coal, have much younger true dates—near the time of the flood, roughly 5,000 years ago.

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How Could Saltwater and Freshwater Fish Survive the Flood?

Related Questions: Why didn’t the salty, subterranean water kill all freshwater fish during the flood? How did saltwater fish survive before the flood? Were preflood fish adapted to salt water or fresh water?

Chemistry of Body Fluids in Fish.  Blood and other body fluids of almost all fish, freshwater and saltwater, have surprisingly similar chemistry. Their blood’s salinity, for example, is somewhere between that of fresh water and salt water. Actually, its concentration is about one-third that of normal seawater, not just for salt (NaCl) but for many other substances.1 For reasons that will soon be apparent, a typical preflood sea probably had a small salt content, as if you mixed two parts of fresh water with one part of seawater. However, just as oceans and seas today have variations in salt content, variations probably existed in and among preflood seas—perhaps large variations.

Living things have many marvelous, semipermeable membranes that allow some liquids or gases to pass through, but not others. For example, capillary walls are semipermeable membranes. Oxygen in our lungs can pass through capillary walls and mix with our blood, but blood does not normally pass through those walls. Substances that can pass through the membrane (such as oxygen) will, on balance, go from the higher concentration (in the lungs) to the lower concentration (in the blood). This is called osmosis.

Fish have a water problem. Freshwater fish have greater salinity in their blood (less concentration of water) than is in the water they swim in, so water seeps into their blood by osmosis. To correct this problem, freshwater fish seldom drink, and their kidneys secrete a watery urine. Conversely, saltwater fish have less salinity in their blood than is in their saline environment, so osmosis forces water from their bodies. Their kidneys pump out so little water that saltwater fish seldom urinate.

Mixing.  During the flood, fish would have tried to stay in the most comfortable regions of the volume of water that was their preflood habitat. Salty, subterranean water, erupting onto the earth’s surface, would not have rapidly mixed with the less salty preflood seas. In fact, the larger a preflood sea, the slower it mixed and diffused, and the better it insulated its fish from muddy, hot, salty currents during the flood.2 Besides, preflood seas would have tended to “float” on the denser, muddier, saltier water.

In one 55-gallon experiment, a layer of freshwater floated on a typical layer of seawater. Several freshwater fish, saltwater fish, and other organisms placed in the tank lived in their respective environments for 30 days. The fish even made brief excursions into the more hostile environment.3 No doubt fresh water and salt water would mix at increasingly slower rates per unit volume if the experiment were scaled up to the size of a global flood.

Natural Selection.  After 150 days (according to Genesis 8:3), flood waters began to drain into newly formed ocean basins. Fish trapped in continental basins were the potential ancestors of our freshwater fish. Rainfall over the next several decades diluted the salt concentration in most postflood lakes.4 Natural selection eliminated fish in each generation that could not tolerate the declining salinity. Those that could, had less competition for resources and could reproduce their tolerance for lower salinities. Because fish reproduce frequently and profusely, limited variations in each generation allowed rapid adaptation in their ability to control the water in their bodies. This is microevolution, not macroevolution. No new organs were needed.

Meanwhile, fish that ended up in the new oceans either had to tolerate slowly increasing salinity or face extinction. Survivors became our saltwater fish. Those unable to adapt are now extinct. (This largely explains why marine animals experienced the most extinctions.) Some fish, the best-known being salmon, are adapted to both fresh water and salt water. Wider salinity tolerances, such as those of salmon, may have existed before the flood.

Design.  The ability over many generations to adapt to changing environments is a wonderful feature designed into all life. Without this capability, extinctions would be more common, and life would eventually cease—beginning, perhaps, near the bottom of the food chain. But adaptation has never produced macroevolution.

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Figure 151: Probably Not a Plesiosaur. This 32-foot-long “monster,” caught by a Japanese fishing ship off the coast of New Zealand in 1977, was unfortunately thrown overboard shortly after this picture was taken. The animal made front-page news for weeks in Japan. Several Japanese scientists felt that it was a plesiosaur, and a Japanese postage stamp seemed to commemorate the discovery of the first modern plesiosaur. In the 1995 edition of this book, this animal was incorrectly labeled as a “possible plesiosaur.” Later, after reading English translations of opinions of other Japanese scientists and seeing similar pictures of decaying basking sharks, it seems more likely that this was a large basking shark.4 Decay patterns near the shark’s head give the appearance of a neck. My apologies for the error.

This frequent question, asked in just this way, implies many questions related to dinosaurs—a word meaning “terrible lizards.” When did they live? What killed the dinosaurs? What were they like? What does the Bible say about them? Could so many large animals have fit on the Ark? There were about 300 different types of dinosaurs. Most were large; some even gigantic. One adult dinosaur was as tall as a five-story building. However, some adults were small, about the size of a chicken.  [See page 279.]

Many questions will be answered if we focus on one question, “When did they live?” Two quite different answers are usually given. Evolutionists say dinosaurs lived, died, and became extinct at least 60 million years before man evolved. Others believe God created all living things during the creation week, so man and dinosaurs lived at the same time. If we look at the evidence, sorting out these two very different answers should be easy.

Did dinosaurs become extinct at least 60 million years before man evolved? Almost all textbooks that address the subject say they did. Movies and television vividly portray this. One hears it even at Disney World and other amusement parks. Some will say that every educated person believes this. We frequently hear stories that begin with impressive-sounding phrases such as, “Two hundred million years ago, as dinosaurs ruled the earth, ...” But none of this is evidence; some of it is an appeal to authority.  (Evidence must be observable and verifiable.)

Did man and dinosaurs live at the same time? Scientists in the former Soviet Union have reported a layer of rock containing more than 2,000 dinosaur footprints alongside tracks “resembling human footprints.”1 Obviously, both types of footprints were made in mud or sand that later hardened into rock. If some are human footprints, then man and dinosaurs lived at the same time. Similar discoveries have been made in Arizona.2 Were it not for the theory of evolution, few would doubt that these were human footprints.

Soft dinosaur tissue has now been recovered from several dinosaurs: three tyrannosaurs (T rex) and one hadrosaur. It is ridiculous to believe that soft tissue can be preserved for more than 60,000,000 years, but it could be preserved for 5,000 years. [For details see “Old DNA, Bacteria, and Proteins?” on page 33.]

The Book of Job is one of the oldest books ever written. In it, God tells of His greatness as Creator and describes an animal, called Behemoth, as follows:

Behold now, Behemoth, which I made as well as you; He eats grass like an ox.  Behold now, his strength in his loins, And his power in the muscles of his belly. He bends his tail like a cedar; The sinews of his thighs are knit together. His bones are tubes of bronze; His limbs are like bars of iron.     (Job 40:15–18)

Marginal notes in most Bibles speculate that Behemoth was probably an elephant or a hippopotamus, but those animals have tails like ropes. Behemoth had a “tail like a cedar.” Any animal with a tail as huge and strong as a cedar tree is probably a dinosaur. Also, Job 40:19–24 says this giant, difficult-to-capture animal was not alarmed by a raging river. If the writer of Job knew of a dinosaur, then the evolution position is wrong, and man saw dinosaurs.

The next chapter of Job describes another huge, fierce animal, a sea monster named Leviathan.3 It was not a whale or crocodile, because the Hebrew language had other words to describe such animals. Leviathan may be a plesiosaur (PLEE see uh sore), a large seagoing reptile that evolutionists say became extinct 60 million years before man evolved.

For the past three centuries, unconfirmed reports have come from the Congo in western Africa that dinosaurs exist in remote swamps. These stories are often from educated people, eyewitnesses, and others who can quickly describe dinosaurs. Although they did not personally see dinosaurs, two expeditions, led by biologist Dr. Roy Mackal of the University of Chicago, verified many of these accounts, some from scientists.5 If any of these accounts are correct, man and dinosaurs were contemporaries.

Consider the many dragon legends. Most ancient cultures have stories or artwork of dragons that strongly resemble dinosaurs.6 The World Book Encyclopedia states that:

The dragons of legend are strangely like actual creatures that have lived in the past. They are much like the great reptiles [dinosaurs] which inhabited the earth long before man is supposed to have appeared on earth. Dragons were generally evil and destructive. Every country had them in its mythology.7

The simplest and most obvious explanation for so many common descriptions of dragons from around the world is that man once knew the dinosaurs.

What caused the extinction of dinosaurs? Primarily, the flood. Because dinosaur bones are found among other fossils, dinosaurs must have been living when the flood began. Dozens of other dinosaur extinction theories exist, but all have recognized problems. [See pages 109–110.] Most of the food chain was buried in the flood. Therefore, many large dinosaurs that survived the flood probably had difficulty feeding themselves and became extinct.

Were dinosaurs on the Ark? Yes. God told Noah to put representatives of every kind of land animal on the Ark. (Some dinosaurs were semiaquatic and could have survived outside the Ark.) But why put adult dinosaurs on the Ark? Young dinosaurs would take up less room, eat less, and be easier to manage. The purpose for having animals on board was so they could reproduce after the flood and repopulate the earth. Young dinosaurs would have more potential for reproduction than old dinosaurs.

Certain bones in dinosaur bodies show annual growth rings, as trees do. Dinosaurs, early in life and late in life, grew at very slow rates. During mid-life, they went through huge growth spurts.8 Therefore, during the year dinosaurs were on the Ark, juveniles probably weighed less than 60 pounds. (A 2-year-old T rex weighed 66 pounds. The largest T rex known, lived to be 28 years.9 Notice, dinosaurs did not become large because they lived long lives.)

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Have Planets Been Discovered Outside the Solar System?

Yes. However, this does not imply that planets evolve or that life exists on such planets.  Quite the opposite.

The media and a few astronomers often fail to explain important aspects of these discoveries. From 1963–2000, false claims were made that planets had been found outside the solar system. Few details accompanied each report, so the general impression that planets evolve was reinforced and became textbook orthodoxy. Today, planets are being discovered, but a close examination shows that their existence contradicts current evolution theories, and almost all of their orbits create temperatures too extreme for life.1 Besides, hundreds of other requirements must be met, and life is too complex to evolve. [See pages 6–21 and “Is There Life in Outer Space?” on page 319.]

What were these false claims that planets had been discovered? In 1963, Peter Van de Kamp announced that Barnard’s star wobbled, as if a planet orbited the star. In 1973, other astronomers showed that the telescope wobbled, not the star. In 1984, major radio and television networks reported that astronomers at Kitt Peak National Observatory had discovered the first planet outside the solar system. Other astronomers, after months of searching, could not verify the claim. Two years later, the astronomers who made the “discovery” acknowledged that atmospheric turbulence probably fooled them, because even they could not find their “planet.” In 1991, British astronomers reported that a star, named Scutum, wobbled with a six-month cycle. They claimed, and the excited media announced, discovery of the first planet outside our solar system. Later, these astronomers admitted their error.  It was Earth that wobbled slightly, not the star.

On 19 May 1998, NASA announced, amid much fanfare, that the Hubble Space Telescope had made the first direct observation of a planet outside the solar system. An editorial in Nature criticized NASA’s premature announcement. “One does not need to read between the lines to perceive a deep need within NASA for publicity.”2 Two years later, the astronomer making the “discovery” retracted her claim.3  What she thought was a planet was a star dimmed by interstellar dust. Other false alarms involved astronomers, eager for publicity, who joined with the media hungry for an audience. Misinformation resulted. Unfortunately, the media rarely retracts reports that are later disproven, and textbooks, which change very slowly, have yet to catch up.

Several stars are surrounded by disks of gas and dust which a few astronomers thought might be merging to form planets. Some of these astronomers also believe that finding such disks confirms the theory that planets evolve from gas and dust orbiting a star. Now, it is known that on rare occasions the outer envelope of a sunlike star can be ejected into a disk shaped cloud within a few years.4

Since 1995, an indirect technique has identified 170+ possible planets outside our solar system. This technique measures a star’s wobble using extremely slight but periodic changes in the star’s color. The light from a few of these stars also dims periodically, as if a planet is passing between the star and Earth, blocking some of the star’s light. Someday, telescopes may allow us to actually see planets outside our solar system.

How do these extrasolar planets contradict evolution theories? One planet has been found in a tight cluster of tens of thousands of stars that would disrupt the evolution of any planet. That cluster is also devoid of the heavy chemical elements thought necessary to evolve a planet.5 At least 30 planets have two suns; one sun of each pair would tend to disrupt any slow evolution of a planet.6 A Jupiter-size planet has been found with three suns! Its orbit is too close (0.05 AU) to one star to keep from being pulled apart. Worse yet, two other stars orbit the first star at a distance of 12.3 AU. Their presence would also prevent the planet from evolving.7

Some relatively cool, planet-size bodies not associated with any star are being discovered wandering alone in deep space. Experts admit that, “The formation of young, free-floating, planetary-mass objects like these is difficult to explain by our current models of how planets form.” 8

To know if extrasolar planets have been found, we must first know what qualifies as a planet. The common characteristics of the solar system’s nine planets are our only guide. Therefore, we might define a planet as a spherical body that is not itself a star, but is in a nearly circular orbit around a star that spins in the same direction as the orbiting body. A planet should be at least as massive as Pluto, which in many ways is our most unusual planet. Pluto provides other limits such as distance from its star (the Sun): < 50 AU, eccentricity: < 0.25, and angle of inclination: < 18 degrees. Most claimed “planets” outside the solar system are not in nearly circular orbits, many are closer to their star than Mercury is to the Sun, few can be shown to orbit in the plane of the star’s equator, and none can be shown to orbit in the direction of the star’s spin. Few, if any, resemble planets in the solar system.

Two aspects of these new, more valid discoveries have gone largely unnoticed. First, how is the plane of the orbiting body oriented? If the orbital plane is parallel to our line of sight to the star, then the orbiting body is small enough to be a planet and still cause the “wobble” we see. However, if the plane is nearly perpendicular to our line of sight, a much more massive body is needed to cause the observed wobble. Some bodies are probably so massive that they are brown dwarfs—small dim stars, some only 5–8 times larger than Jupiter. Most stars orbit other stars. A brown dwarf can also orbit another star, so brown dwarfs could cause some of the observed wobbles. The dividing line between brown dwarfs and planets is uncertain and involves more than just mass, because their sizes can overlap9—another reason for defining planets.

Second, if the unseen bodies are planets, then some are so near their star that they are losing mass too rapidly.10 Furthermore, their rocky cores would have melted before the planet’s evolution could begin.11 Others are too far from their star and the dust near the star needed to grow a planet. Also, their slow motion at those great distances would “scoop up” little dust. If planets evolved, friction from the gas and dust around a young star would have circularized each planet’s orbit. As stated above, most of the claimed planets do not have circular orbits.

Finally, some bodies orbiting stars may be a new class of object—neither planets nor brown dwarfs. Techniques are being developed which will shed more light on these bodies. What is clear is that for the nine planets we know best and for the extrasolar planets, evolutionary explanations are completely inadequate.12

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Is the Hydroplate Theory Consistent with the Bible?

Without hearing from eyewitnesses, police can usually reconstruct the general outlines of an automobile accident by carefully studying skid marks and wreckage. So also, some details of the flood can be pieced together by studying its wreckage. However, good witnesses provide details consistent with the physical evidence as well as information we could never learn otherwise.

For example, the flood was initiated by God as a consequence of man’s sin. We may never understand exactly how God physically triggered the flood but, once triggered, other events must have occurred whose consequences, or “wreckage,” we can still see. Examples are: the death, rapid burial, and preservation of trillions of organisms as fossils in layered rocks, the crumpling of major mountains, fossils of sea creatures on every major mountain range, the jigsaw fit of the continents, the formation of strange features on the ocean floor, the gouging out of canyons, and hundreds of other events. One should be able to place many of these consequences in a cause-and-effect sequence that (1) conforms to scientific laws, (2)  best explains details of these observations, and (3)  provides a greater understanding of this global cataclysm.  That is the purpose of the hydroplate theory.

Table 20 shows the close correspondence between the biblical description of the flood and the hydroplate theory.

The following verses speak of subterranean water. Taken collectively, they appear to provide support for the statements in bold below. Some passages may be metaphors referring to ancient demonstrations of God’s power.

1. Large quantities of subterranean water existed in the ancient past.

    * Psalm 24:2. ... He has founded it [the earth] upon the seas ...
    * Psalm 33:7. ... He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap; He lays up the deeps in storehouses ... (A storehouse is a closed container that preserves something you may use later. God used that water when He brought it forth as a flood. Many storehouses, or interconnected chambers, held the subterranean water.)
    * Psalm 104:3. He lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters ...1 [Pillars were established.]
    * Psalm 136:6. ... [He] spread out the earth above the waters ...
    * II Peter 3:5. ... the earth was formed out of water and by water ...2

2.  These subterranean waters burst forth bringing on the flood.

    * Genesis 7:11–12. ... the fountains of the great deep burst open,3 and the floodgates4 of the sky were opened.  And rain fell ...5
    * Job 38:8–11. ... the sea ... bursting forth, it went out from the womb; when I made a cloud its garment ...
    * Psalm 18:15. ... the channels of water appeared, and the foundations of the world were laid bare ...
    * Proverbs 3:20. ... the deeps were broken up and the skies dripped dew ...

3. A massive hailstorm occurred.

    * Exodus 9:18, 24. ... I will send a very heavy hail, such as has not been seen in Egypt from the day it was founded until now. ... So there was hail, and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hail, very severe, such as had not been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. [Both verses imply that an even larger hailstorm than the one God inflicted on Pharaoh occurred before Egypt became a nation. That earlier hailstorm was presumably during the flood.]6

4. After the 40-day avalanche of rain ended, the waters continued to rise until the 150th day.

    * Genesis 7:12. And the [geshem (see Endnote 4)] rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.7
    * Genesis 7:18–19, 24. ... the water prevailed8 and increased greatly ... so all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. ... and the waters prevailed for one hundred and fifty days.

5. Mountains dramatically formed, each in minutes, as the flood waters receded.

    * Psalm 104:6b–9. ... the waters were standing above the mountains. At Thy rebuke they fled; at the sound of Thy thunder they hurried away. The mountains rose; the valleys sank down to the place which Thou didst establish for them. Thou didst set a boundary that they [the water] may not pass over; that they may not return to cover the earth.9
    * A possible description of some events in the early history of the earth may be found in Proverbs 8:22–29.

6. Before the flood, a year may have had 360 days. [See Endnote 12 on page 151.]

    * The 150th day of the flood was exactly 5 months after the fountains of the great deep broke loose. [See Genesis 7:11, 7:24, and 8:4.] Five 30-day months would be 150 days; twelve 30-day months would be 360 days.

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How Was the Earth Divided in Peleg’s Day?

Genesis 10:25 states, and I Chronicles 1:19 repeats, “And two sons were born to Eber; the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided.” Peleg lived a few centuries after the flood.  Little else is known about him.

In what way was the earth divided? Here are three possiblities. Bible commentators mention only the first two.

a. Languages multiplied at Babel and produced divisions among the people of the world. [See Genesis 11:1–9.]

b. The continents were divided by continental drift which began in Peleg’s day.

c. Greatly lowered sea levels soon after the flood (as explained by the hydroplate theory) connected all continents.1 Sea level rose in Peleg’s day, dividing the earth by water.

Languages Divided in Peleg’s  Day? Scripture says, “the earth was divided.” The Hebrew word for earth, erets, can also be translated: countries, land, or ground. In other words, the land was divided, not people or languages. Besides, Peleg probably lived two generations after languages were multiplied at Babel.2

Continents Broke and Began Drifting in Peleg’s  Day?  If this happened, what broke them apart? Worse yet, what moved them? It takes earthshaking forces to break and move continents. Those who accept the plate tectonic theory believe continents have broken frequently—geologically speaking. To stretch and break a thick slab of rock requires, among other things,3 sliding it horizontally on its foundation against enormous frictional force. [See the Technical Note on page 355.] Simultaneously, an additional force must stretch the slab, like a rubber band, until it breaks. Plate tectonics can’t provide either gigantic force. Therefore, you can safely offer to move a continent (provide one force) if someone will break a continent (provide both forces).

Those who claim continents broke and moved have not fully considered the forces and energy required. To open up the entire Atlantic in a few thousand years by rock-on-rock sliding would produce indescribable global violence and volcanic activity that left no geological or historical record. (Among practically all cultures, ancient and modern, the only global catastrophe with a clear historical record is the flood.)

If the continents broke apart, they should fit together better than they do. (Figures 50–51, page 108, show this.) The public has been misled for decades into believing the continents fit against each other. Actually, four great map distortions were deliberately made, as Figure 49 explains. Continents bordering the Atlantic fit much better next to the base of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.  The hydroplate theory explains why.

Rising  Water  Divided  Continents  in  Peleg’s  Day? The Bible uses the Hebrew word peleg as a verb three times. Two usages, mentioned above, are translated simply as divided (Genesis 10:25 and I Chronicles 1:19). The third use is a division by water (Job 38:25). In the ten instances where peleg is a common noun, it always involves water. The New American Standard Bible translates it eight times as “streams,” once as “stream,” and once as “channels.” Therefore, peleg may imply a division by water.

In English, we have the words archipelago (a sea having, or dividing, many islands) and pelagic (relating to or living in the sea). Pelagic sediments or deposits are sediments on the ocean floor. Pelagic frequently refers to life forms found in the sea. Bathypelagic means relating to or living in the deep sea.  Also, the prefix pelag means sea.

Dr. Bernard Northrup, a Hebrew professor, has shown that peleg originally meant division by water.4 That meaning is embedded in all three language families of Noah’s offspring. Consequently, its meaning probably preceded the multiplication of languages at Babel.  Northrup states:

[Peleg, palag, or PLG] often contains within it a reference to water. It is used to refer to a stream of water in Hebrew, Coptic, Ethiopic and in Greek. The root is used to refer to irrigation canals which carried the water throughout the farming land of Mesopotamia. However, an examination of the Greek usage (of the family of Japeth [one of Noah’s three sons]) of the root letters PL and PLG clearly shows that in the majority of the instances this root was used of the ocean. ... It is used to mean: “to form a sea or lake,” “of places that are flooded and under water,” “of crossing the sea,” of “the broad sea” itself, of “being out at sea,” “on the open sea.” It is used of seamen and ships. The noun with the result suffix is used of “an inundation.” I continue: it is used of “a being at sea,” of “a creature of or on the sea,” of “one who walks on the sea,” of “running or sailing on the open sea,” of “a harbor that is formed in the open sea by means of sandbags,” and in many ways of “the open sea itself,” of “going to, into or toward the sea,” of “roving through the sea,” of “being sea-nourished,” of “turning something into the sea or into the sea or of flooding.” It is quite apparent that every Greek usage here involves the sea in someway.

Therefore, the earth was probably divided by water in Peleg’s day. The hydroplate theory explains how and why. Immediately after the flood, sea level was several miles lower than today,5 because the floor of the subterranean chambers was about 10 miles below the earth’s surface. As the crushed, thickened, buckled, and sediment-ladened continents sank into the mantle in the centuries after the flood, sea level had to rise in compensation. Eventually, sea level approached today’s level.  [See pages 102–131 for details and evidence.]

With sea level much lower for a few centuries after the flood, imagine how many migration paths existed for animals and man to populate today’s continents and islands.6 God’s commands (Genesis 9:1, 11:4–9) for humans and animals to populate the “whole earth” after the flood must have been doable. If, after the flood, sea level was where it is today, repopulating the “whole earth” would have been difficult, if not impossible, for those first receiving God’s command. The wisdom and urgency of God’s command are apparent when we realize that sea level was steadily rising. The “window of opportunity” for global migration was disappearing in Peleg’s day.

From the genealogies listed on page 317, we see that Peleg lived from 100 to 339 years after the flood, five generations after Noah. Therefore, Peleg, or those who named him, may have been world travelers or explorers who discovered that the earth was being divided by rising water. Certainly, Noah’s early descendants knew how to construct ships, because Noah and his three sons built the Ark. They would have had an explorer’s curiosity when they realized how drastically the flood had changed the earth. Their long life spans allowed them to pursue that curiosity and accumulate knowledge.

This would explain why a remarkably accurate, authentic, and ancient map has been found showing islands now covered with water and the outlines of Antarctica—as it would look with no ice.7 The map’s cartographer must have explored, on a lowered sea, Antarctica’s coastline before it accumulated all its ice. Only in recent years has technology allowed us to “see” those ancient coastlines through the ice.

The Ice Age would have lowered sea level about 300 feet—not enough to join all continents. But at the height of the Ice Age, Antarctica would not have been free from ice. Therefore, an Ice Age cannot explain both the ancient map and interconnected continents. The flood accounts for both. (The hydroplate theory shows why the flood produced an Ice Age.)

Conclusion.  Strong linguistic and scientific arguments oppose the two interpretations of Genesis 10:25 commonly taught: (1) a division of people by multiplication of languages, and (2) the beginning of continental drift. Instead, these studies point to an earth being divided by rising water in the days of Peleg. They also paint a picture of our ancestors migrating and exploring soon after the flood.

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Did It Rain before the Flood?

Genesis 2:5–6 suggests it did not rain before the flood:

Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth; and there was no man to cultivate the ground. But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground.1

But notice, these verses only state that shortly after the earth was created, it had not rained. How long did this condition last? Some believe this mist began the evaporation-rain cycle.  If so, the period of no rain was brief, and it rained before the flood.  Let’s look for other clues.

Rainbows.  God promised never again to flood the entire earth (Genesis 9:12–17), a promise marked by a “bow in the cloud”—a rainbow. Rainbows form when raindrops refract sunlight. This suggests that rainbows began after the flood, which would mean there was no preflood rain.

Others disagree, saying rainbows may have been visible before the flood, but afterward God simply associated His promise with rainbows. This would be similar to the symbolism of a wedding ring. Rings existed before a wedding, but afterward the ring recalls a solemn vow. However, if rainbows suddenly began after the flood, the rainbow’s symbolic effect would have been more unforgettable and reassuring to the frightened survivors of the flood.

Some argue that rainbows would have formed before the flood every time water splashed and sunlight passed through the droplets. This argument overlooks that God’s promise concerned rainbows “in the cloud,” not a relatively few drops of water several feet above the ground.

A Terrarium.  The Hebrew word translated “mist,” ed ($!), in Genesis 2:6 is used in only one other place in the Bible—Job 36:27. There it clearly means water vapor. So, did the preflood earth act as a humid terrarium in which water vapor evaporated, condensed without rainfall, and watered the earth? Could an earth-size terrarium produce enough water to supply major rivers, such as described in Genesis 2:10–14? Two preflood rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, were evidently the basis for naming the mighty postflood rivers that today bear the same names.  [See Endnote 4 on page 262.]

The preflood earth was quite different from today’s earth. If the hydroplate theory is reasonably correct, earth’s preflood topography was smoother, so rivers flowed more slowly and required less water to keep them filled. No volcanoes, major mountains, glaciers, or polar ice existed before the flood. Approximately half the earth’s water was under the earth’s crust, so the earth’s surface had about half the water it has today. With 360-day years, days were slightly longer, so temperatures were slightly higher during the day and colder at night. [See pages 102–131 and Endnotes 12–14 on page 151.] The preflood earth had greater land area, because the flood produced today’s ocean basins. [See pages 136–155.] Preflood forests were vast and lush, enough to form today’s coal, oil, and methane deposits. This left little room for deserts. Could these preflood conditions have prevented rain, yet adequately watered a thirsty earth?

Condensation Nuclei.  Water droplets almost always begin with water vapor condensing on a solid surface. A common example is early-morning dew that collects on grass. Raindrops, snowflakes, and fog particles begin growing on microscopic particles carried in the air. These particles, called condensation nuclei, are typically 0.001–0.0001 millimeters in diameter—less than one hundredth the diameter of a human hair. Each cubic inch of air we breathe contains at least 1,000 such particles. Water vapor molecules rarely collide and stick together; instead, a water droplet forms when trillions of water molecules collect on a microscopic particle.

Wind.  Atmospheric temperature differences cause wind, which then mixes air that has different temperatures and moisture contents. The various “mixtures” give us weather: rain, snow, hail, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, fair weather, etc. Without major mountains, ice sheets, volcanoes, and as much ocean water as today,2 the preflood earth had more uniform temperatures. Also, abundant vegetation moderated temperatures by evaporative cooling during the day and condensation and heating at night. More uniform temperatures meant less wind3 and weather extremes.

If a water molecule were the size of a ping-pong ball, a condensation nucleus would be a house-size “rock” and a raindrop would be 100 miles in diameter. When a gaseous water molecule strikes that “rock,” much of the molecule’s energy is transferred to the “rock” as heat. If a somewhat “absorbent rock” is cold enough and the humidity is high enough, the molecule will stick; condensation will begin, and a raindrop will start to grow. The “rock,” slightly warmer because of the added energy from colliding water molecules, will warm the surrounding air, causing slight updrafts. Moist breezes plus updrafts would bring enough moisture to “the rock” for it to grow into a water droplet.

That “rock” and its attached water cannot “float” in calm air for long, just as a grain of sand cannot float in still water. Only wind can suspend condensation nuclei, just as only a swift stream can suspend a sand particle. With less preflood wind, condensation nuclei would receive less lift and stay closer to the ground. With more uniform temperatures globally, less air would rise over warmer areas—again, keeping nuclei and moisture closer to the ground.  High clouds may not have existed.

Once water began collecting on nuclei near the ground, the heat of condensation warmed the adjacent air, causing it to rise. A microscopic droplet has a large cross-sectional area relative to its volume, so rising, moist air carried the tiny droplet upward. As it rapidly grew, its weight increased faster than its cross-sectional area, so it quickly settled to the earth and often collected other droplets in its path. We could describe this as fog rising from the earth and then settling back to water the ground before rain could form. (Sounds like Genesis 2:5–6, doesn’t it?) It would be similar to morning fog rising on a still lake, but with two differences.

First, without polar ice and snow-capped mountains before the flood, less solar radiation reflected back into space, so more of the sun’s rays heated the earth during the day. With more forests, fewer (if any) clouds, and slightly longer days, the earth absorbed even more solar energy. Consequently, more water evaporated each day. At night, fewer clouds and longer nights allowed more heat to escape into space, causing more water to condense. (Today, clouds reflect back into space 20–25% of the incoming radiation and hold in much of the earth’s outgoing radiation.) Therefore, the preflood earth was watered more abundantly and uniformly by daily condensation than by rain today.

Heavy condensation before each sunrise kept moisture closer to the ground and restricted high-cloud formation. Today, morning fog evaporates soon after sunrise, before it can settle to the ground. With fewer, if any, high clouds before the flood, temperatures dropped more rapidly at night. This, coupled with more moisture in the daytime air, allowed water droplets to grow larger, settle to the ground faster, and be absorbed by the soil before morning evaporation could begin.

The second difference caused preflood fog droplets to grow even faster and larger. Without today’s main sources of condensation nuclei (volcanic debris, sulfur compounds from volcanoes, man-made pollutants, lightning-produced fires, sea salt from ocean spray, or dust kicked up by high winds) there were fewer condensation nuclei. Condensing more moisture on fewer nuclei meant fog droplets grew larger and settled faster.

First Rain.  If it did not rain before the flood, how did the first rain form at the very beginning of the flood? As explained on pages 102–131, the drops of water falling at the beginning of the flood were not formed by condensing water. Instead, they formed by fragmenting and atomizing the upward-jetting subterranean waters.

Any credible explanation of the flood should explain why it probably did not rain before the flood, how the fertile earth was watered, what supplied the rivers, how violent rain4 fell so rapidly at the beginning of the flood, and why the rain ended after 40 days, even though the flood waters rose until the 150th day when all the preflood mountains were covered. Also, if the flood’s 40 days of rain formed by condensation, why didn’t that rain stop after a few days, because falling rain would have removed the condensation nuclei?  The hydroplate theory answers these questions.

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What Triggered the Flood?

God initiated the flood because of man’s sin. At the end of the creation week, all that God created was “very good” (Genesis 1:31), so the flood was not inevitable at that time. In other words, the earth was not created with a “ticking time bomb.” Nor was the universe created with killer comets, asteroids, or meteoroids aimed at earth. Indeed, their presence at the end of the creation week would not have been “very good.” [Pages 208–255 explain why the flood produced comets, asteroids, and meteoroids.]

Later, because of the depth of man’s sin (Genesis 6:5–6), God flooded the entire earth. We may never know just how the physical chain of events for the flood began, but the Bible gives some intriguing clues.

The hydroplate theory, summarized on pages 102–131, shows how a global flood, corresponding in every detail to the Genesis flood, easily explains 24 otherwise mysterious features of the earth and solar system. This theory requires: (1) a large volume of water under the earth’s crust, and (2) pillars that partially supported the crust. Although the Bible speaks in several places of considerable subterranean water (see page 293), how did the pillars form?

Rock Movement.  First, visualize an important feature of the newly created, preflood earth. Imagine the entire earth’s surface covered by a sandwich arrangement in which a horizontal layer of rock (which will become the earth’s crust) has a layer of water above and also below it. The rock layer is almost 10 miles thick; each water layer is about 3/4 of a mile thick. The water above this rock layer is surface water; the confined water below is subterranean water. If the rock layer were perfectly uniform in thickness and density, everything would be in balance.  Equilibrium would exist.

No doubt variations existed in the rock’s thickness and density. The heavier parts would sag (bend) downward, like an overloaded floor, causing additional water on top to flow into each depression. That added weight would increase each sag. More surface water would flow into the growing depressions, driving each sag even deeper.1 

Figure 152: Dry Land Appears. At the end of the first creation day, Day 1, water covered the entire earth. On Day 2, God made a “raqia” that sharply separated (“badal”) the liquid water (“mayim”) above from the liquid water below. On Day 3, land rose out of the surface water, in preparation for the creation of plants, animals, and humans. (Water thicknesses are exaggerated to illustrate events of Days 2 and 3.  Dimensions are estimates.)

Recognizing that a large amount of water was under the preflood crust, as the Bible states, is essential to understanding the flood. Our failure to understand basic physical aspects of the flood opened the door to evolution and a belief, by some, in a multibillion-year-old earth.

Some sagging rock would also be squeezed downward through the subterranean water, forming protrusions—or “pillars”—pressed against the chamber floor.  Here’s why.  The pressure within the rock at the base of the rock layer’s thicker, denser portions would exceed the subterranean water’s pressure pushing upward. If that pressure difference exceeded the rock’s shear strength at any point, rock would “flow” downward, deforming like putty. (Compression tests on cylinders of rock subjected to high confining pressures, but larger axial loads, show that the rock cylinders deform like putty.)

Downward protrusions (pillars) would grow like the downward flow in a lava lamp, except the rock, being a solid instead of a liquid, had internal strength due to atomic bonding. The deeper the pillars went, the greater this pressure difference would become, so rock would “flow” even deeper until all pillars pressed against the chamber floor. Pillars carrying an excessive load would thicken and penetrate slightly into the chamber floor.

The same effects, but in the opposite direction, would have lifted thinner, less-dense portions of the rock layer up out of the water, forming continents. Keep in mind that the confined subterranean water had essentially a fixed volume. Therefore, as rock sagged downward and as pillars were squeezed downward, this fixed volume of subterranean water had to displace thinner parts of the rock layer, forcing them upward.

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If, on Day 2 of the creation week, our “sandwich” encircled the earth like the outer three rings of an onion, water would cover the entire earth. In the following hours, the thinner portions of the crust would rise out of the surface water and become dry land. Water would drain into depressions. This seems to be what happened on Day 3 (Genesis 1:9–10). Water covered the entire earth, then “God said, ‘Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear’; and it was so. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas;” [Pages 306–314 further support this interpretation of Day 2.]

Genesis 1:9 says the waters below the heavens were gathered into one place (i.e., one big ocean). Why, then, in the next verse did God call the collected waters “seas”—plural?  Answer: Multiple seas were honeycombed below the crust.  The Interpreter’s Bible explains:

“Seas” embraces more than the waters upon the face of the earth; it includes also the (supposed) subterranean waters upon which the earth was believed to rest ... and the circumfluent ocean, upon which the pillars of the firmament stood.2

Psalm 24:2a specifically states that God “founded it [the earth] upon the seas.

Interestingly, Day 2 was the only creation day in which the Bible does not expressly say God saw that day’s work was “good.” Certainly, nothing bad was done on the second day, because at the end of the creation week, God saw that all He had made was “very good.” Apparently, the second day’s activity was not completed until Day 3.

Now we can see why. On Day 2, after the crust was created with liquid water above and below it, the crust began to deform. Thicker portions sagged and squeezed down pillars, while thinner portions rose out of the water. Thus, Psalm 104:3, in describing Day 2,3 states (with my interpretations in brackets), “He lays the beams [pillars] of His upper chambers [the crust] in the [subterranean] waters.” By Day 3, surface water had drained into depressions, forming dry land—a “good” condition (Genesis 1:10) necessary for the life God would create next.

Peter also seems to describe these events in II Peter 3:3–6. He states that in the latter days mockers will not understand that, “the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water.”

This is consistent with the following interpretation: On Day 2, a nearly horizontal crust, or “expanse,” was formed in the midst of the liquid water covering the earth (Genesis 1:2,6,7,9). On Day 3, thinner portions of the crust rose out of the water, causing water above the crust to flow into depressions (Genesis 1:10). In other words, the earth (its crust) was formed out of  (rose out of) surface water and was formed by pressure from subterranean water. Some might incorrectly think “forming the earth out of water” implies alchemy—water (H2O) was changed into SiO2, (Mg,Fe)2SiO4, and a host of other minerals that comprise rock. (Even if alchemy occurred, one would not say rock formed by water.) Actually, “out of” is used in a spatial sense. The King James translation clearly conveys this idea of the land rising out of water:  “... the earth standing out of the water ... .”

About 2,000 years later,4 the water below the crust burst forth as “the fountains of the great deep,” combined with the surface water, and, as Peter wrote, flooded and destroyed earth in a global cataclysm. The Greek word katakluzo, from which we get our word “cataclysm,” is translated as “flooded” in II Peter 3:6. In describing Noah’s flood, the Bible never uses the normal Greek or Hebrew words for flood. Noah’s flood was much more; it was an unparalleled, global cataclysm—earth’s defining geological event.

The complex Hebrew word raqia is usually translated in modern times as “expanse” or “firmament.” Pages 306–314 explain why raqia is sometimes identified with “heavens” but in other contexts refers to earth’s preflood crust.

Rock Pillars.  Compressed subterranean water (water pressure) supported most of the crust’s weight; pillars supported the rest. Every 12 hours, tidal effects, caused primarily by the Moon’s gravity, lifted the subsurface water (and, therefore, the earth’s crust) a foot or so, just as tides lift ocean surfaces today. At low tides, the crust settled. The pressure each pillar exerted on the chamber floor increased and decreased twice daily. These loose, or flexible, contacts could be described as “sockets.” Smaller tides also occur in the solid earth.  [See Endnote 5 on page 349.]

The Bible says the earth was founded on pillars. Psalm 75:3b says, “It is I [God] Who have firmly set its [the earth’s] pillars.” In Job 38, God demonstrates His authority by giving Job the most difficult science examination of all time. In verses 4–6, God asks Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth!  Tell Me, if you have understanding, ... On what were its bases sunk?” This word, “bases,” is translated in all 54 other places in the Bible as “pedestals” or “sockets” which held pillars.

Interestingly, two verses later, in Job 38:8–11, God seems to speak of liquid water—surrounded by a dark cloud of water vapor—that burst forth as the global flood.

Or who enclosed the sea with doors, when, bursting forth, it went out from the womb, when I made a cloud its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and I placed boundaries on it, and set a bolt and doors, and I said, “Thus far you shall come, but no farther; and here shall your proud waves stop.

Ancient extrabiblical writings, although not having the authority of biblical passages, also describe this pillar structure within the subterranean water. As one example, the British Museum’s The Book of the Cave of Treasures, dated at about A.D. 300–599, states:

And on the Third Day God commanded the waters that were below the firmament to be gathered together in one place, and the dry land to appear. And when the covering of water had been rolled up from the face of the earth, the earth showed itself to be in an unsettled and unstable state, that is to say, it was of a damp or moist and yielding nature. And the waters were gathered together into seas that were under the earth and within it, and upon it. And God made the earth from below, corridors and shafts, and channels for the passage of the waters; ... Now, as for the earth, the lower part of it is like unto a thick sponge, for it resteth on the waters.5  [emphasis added]

The Bible often speaks of “the foundation(s) of the earth.” On Day 3, the earth’s crust was literally established, or set (using pillars), on its foundation. Had this not happened, the crust would have continually tottered (or oscillated like the surface of an earth-size water bed). Perhaps this is why the psalmist wrote, “He established the earth upon its foundations, so that it will not totter forever and ever” (Psalm 104:5). Only by understanding some basic physics and the role of subterranean water, will these matters—and the global flood—be clear.

On the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open (Genesis 7:11). On one day, the crust ruptured and the flood began. Water from the fountains fell as rain. Subterranean water flowed with unimaginable force horizontally through the subterranean chambers and up through the globe-encircling rupture. Pillars were crushed into fragments by the increasing crustal loads they carried. Each pillar’s collapse generated huge waves in the surface water and pressure pulses in the subterranean water. Rock fragments, accelerated into space by astounding energy sources in the fountains of the great deep, became meteoroids.6 Thus the pillars, or foundations of the world, collapsed. This may be what Psalm 18:15 refers to when it says, “Then the channels of water appeared, and the foundations of the world were laid bare.”

Rupture Mechanism: Tidal Pumping. But why did the pressure in the subterranean water increase enough to rupture the crust? Tides. Each “tidal lift” transferred energy from the earth’s spin to the crust. As the massive crust settled between lifts, most of that enormous energy7 was converted by friction into heat. This cyclic compression—tidal pumping—twice a day for about 2,000 years, heated and expanded the subterranean water, increasing its pressure in the confined chamber. As temperatures rose throughout the chamber, the water became supercritical water (see page 112), existing pillars weakened, and more pillars flowed down from the hot ceiling, further increasing the subterranean water’s pressure. Failure of the first few pillars rapidly collapsed all pillars, much like a falling house of cards. Pressures within the chamber fluctuated wildly.

How hot might the high-pressure water have become? Question 5 on page 242 explains why some meteorites reached temperatures of at least 1,300°F. Other minerals within meteorites were also very hot,8 a fact that perplexes meteorite experts. This heating throughout meteorites must have occurred before they were launched into supercold outer space, where temperatures are almost absolute zero (-460°F). (Heating due to impacts, launch, or reentry would not be throughout meteorites.) Therefore, if meteorites came from pillars, as proposed on pages 240–256, then pillars and the subterranean water reached at least 1,300°F.

Sinking Continents. Because the thinner (and higher) portions of the crust were supported entirely by subterranean water, primarily the continents and preflood mountains sank as the supercritical water escaped. Therefore, the flooded earth resulted as much from sinking continents as from rising water.

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Genesis 7:20 says that the flood waters covered all preflood mountains by 15 cubits (about 221/2 feet). Today, mountain heights vary by thousands of feet, so why did many, if not all, preflood mountains have about the same elevation? (Some commentators, inserting words not in the Bible, say that “at least” 15 cubits of water were above all the earth’s mountains. Others say that the text means the Ark, whose height was 30 cubits, must have been only half submerged and did not run into mountain peaks.) The explanation becomes clear if we recognize that the earth was founded on and spread out above liquid water (Psalms 24:2, 104:3, and 136:6).  Here’s why:

On Day 3 of the creation week, the higher a continent rose out of the surface water, the more pressure it exerted on the subterranean water directly below. (To demonstrate this buoyancy effect, support a large rock under water with one hand. Notice how the pressure on your hand increases as you slowly lift the rock out of the water.) Therefore, as the land rose higher, it would have risen more slowly, giving preflood mountains similar heights.

About 2,000 years later, as the flood waters rose and continents sank, this same buoyancy effect caused preflood mountains not yet covered by water to exert greater pressure on the water still under the crust. This reduced their height and lifted lower mountains, further equalizing mountain heights above the rising water—just as Genesis 7:20 states.

As the first days and weeks of the flood passed, pillars were increasingly crushed, and more and more of the crust rested on the subterranean chamber floor, slowing the water’s escape. The vertical walls on each side of the rupture were almost 10-miles high. Because the rock’s pressure in the bottom half of each wall exceeded its crushing strength, the unsupported, unconfined walls continually crumbled—for 150 days (Genesis 7:24). During that time, the upward-jetting, supersonic fountains of the great deep removed that rubble, widening the rupture hundreds of miles.

Mass deep in the mantle shifted slightly toward these relatively unloaded portions of the chamber floor. Suddenly, the chamber floor buckled upward beneath the widened rupture, first forming the Mid-Atlantic portion of the Mid-Oceanic Ridge. The crust slid on lubricating water, downhill and away from that Atlantic Ridge segment. Sliding continental plates—the hydroplates—crashed and compressed, in that “compression event.”

Weaker portions of the hydroplates crushed, thickened, and buckled. In doing so, the new, postflood continents rose out of the flood waters, allowing water to drain into newly opened—and temporarily very deep—ocean basins. Buckled mountains also formed, as shown in Figure 48 on page 106. For each cubic mile of land that rose out of the flood waters, one cubic mile of flood water could drain. (Note: Today, the volume of all land above sea level is only one-tenth of the volume of water on earth.) Other dramatic consequences in the Pacific, including formation of gigantic oceanic trenches, are discussed on pages 135–155.

Sliding rock-on-rock contacts quickly became molten rock-water mixtures. This is why magma contains a surprising amount of dissolved water, why a thin saltwater layer appears to be under all continents at the depth predicted by the hydroplate theory,9 and why a thick, water-laden layer appears to be under the Tibetan Plateau.10

Conclusions.  Sometime after the Fall but before the flood, a chain of physical events began that produced a global flood.11 Although we cannot be sure exactly how it began, that cataclysm had many consequences: layered fossils; coal, oil, and methane deposits; major mountain ranges; ice ages; and dozens of other global features. Our challenge is to explain their details and show how all these features are related and consistent with the laws of physics and the biblical account. Recognizing that water was created under earth’s crust and understanding the second creation day clarify the flood considerably and explain many major issues that befuddle evolutionists.

For centuries, hundreds of sincere questions about the flood have been asked; they deserve thoughtful answers. Without clear explanations, a “vacuum” has existed into which evolutionists have placed faulty theories. Telling nonbelievers to simply believe the Bible accomplishes little and creates unnecessary resentment.

Day 2—a key to explaining the flood—has been poorly understood. As Peter wrote, people would not understand that earth’s crust was formed out of and by water which later flooded the earth. This proposed interpretation of Day 2 helps us appreciate the presence of so much subterranean water, the power of “the fountains of the great deep,” why they all erupted so quickly (on one day), and where the flood waters came from and where they went. Had the flood been better understood before Charles Darwin popularized evolution, that “idea vacuum” would never have formed, and many more people would have recognized evolutionary explanations as completely inadequate. Evolution would not have flourished. Our task, then, is to fill this “vacuum” by explaining to others what we now know about the flood.

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If God Made Everything, Who Made God?

We live in, among other things, a time dimension where one event follows another. Time passes. Everything ages. Throughout our lives, we learn that effects always have causes. We would be confused if they didn’t. Therefore, it is hard to imagine the first cause, and even harder to imagine what, if anything, preceded “The First Cause.”

Just as God created the universe and everything in it, God also created time. There was a beginning of everything, including space and time. Consequently, God is outside of space and time. This means that God is unchanging (I Sam 15:29, Mal 3:6, Heb 6:17, James 1:17). He had no beginning and has no ending.

Also, and more pertinent to the question, from God’s perspective an effect does not follow a cause. He sees the beginning and the end (Rev 1:8, 21:6, 22:13). Asking who made God before time began reflects a lack of understanding—even though most of us at one time have pondered the question. No one “made” God; He is infinite, outside of time, and already existed when time began.

Thirty years ago, one of my children asked me this question as I tucked him into bed. While I can’t remember my answer, I am sure it was inadequate. Having years to think about his question has helped me somewhat resolve the logic of the preceding two paragraphs with what is hard to imagine.

Seeing things from God’s infinite perspective is probably as hard for us as it is for a dog or cat to understand what is on this printed page. If God is infinite and we are His finite creations, our limited understanding and perspective should not surprise us.

How else do we know that time began? The Bible is the most widely read book of all time. Within it, the most read page is probably the first page of Genesis. The first three words on that page

In the beginning ...

are probably the best-known group of three words of all time—the single, most widely proclaimed idea. By reading the fourth word, one sees that God was there at the beginning.

Another key insight comes from John 1:1.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Again, there was a beginning; we are also told Who was there when time began. Verses 1:2, 3, and 14 clarify these profound events even more.

For scientifically compelling reasons, there was a beginning.  [See Items 52, 53, and 55, starting on page 27.] Alternatively, you can save time and effort by reading again the first four words of the Bible—and believing them.

In the beginning, God ...

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Did a Water Canopy Surround Earth and Contribute to the Flood?

Isaac Vail (1840–1912) first proposed the canopy theory in 1874.1 He believed a canopy formed millions of years ago as the earth evolved from a molten state. Vail supported his case primarily by ancient mythology, which in his opinion included Genesis 1:6–8a that states:

Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate waters from waters.” And 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. And God called the expanse heaven.

Notice that these verses do not explicitly say a canopy surrounded the earth.

Vail’s canopy was a vapor cylinder surrounding the earth but open at the poles. Since then, many people have recognized problems with Vail’s canopy and proposed variations. These usually involved a thin, spherical shell of water—as either a liquid, gas (a vapor), or solid (ice particles or an ice shell). As we will see, each variation has serious biblical and scientific problems. In fact, canopy theories “do not hold water.” Consequently, canopy theories have delayed our understanding of Genesis 1:6–8a, the structure of the preflood earth, the flood, and earth’s geological features.  But first, what are the standard arguments for a canopy?

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Arguments for a Canopy—and Brief Responses

The Source of the Flood Water. “Today, earth’s atmosphere holds, on average, only one inch worth of liquid water. Therefore, the Genesis flood raises two common questions: Where did so much flood water come from, and where did it go?  A canopy partially answers the first question.”

Response: No canopy theory claims to provide all the water for a global flood. Nor does any canopy theory explain where the water went after the flood. Somehow transporting this water back into outer space or suddenly forming deep ocean basins after the flood is hard to imagine or explain. However, the phrase “the fountains of the great deep” (Genesis 7:11) implies that the flood water came from subterranean sources. To learn where the water went after the flood, see pages 102–131.

Many have rejected the Genesis flood account because they could not imagine where the flood water, which covered all mountains, went. Canopy theories have contributed to this difficulty.

Drop in Longevity. “Radiation from outer space may cause people to age. If so, a preflood canopy might have shielded people from this aging process. Perhaps this is why life spans before the flood were about 900 years.”

Response: If radiation from space reduced life spans, we would expect an immediate drop in longevities after the flood. Life spans did drop, but for 12 generations after the flood, human longevity remained much higher than today. [See page 317.] Even Noah lived 349 years after the flood. Some argue that perhaps radiation damage accumulated genetically over many generations. Few, if any, canopy proponents have proposed specifically what type of harmful radiation it was, how it reduced longevity so much without causing massive deformities and genetic diseases, why longevity leveled off at about 70 years rather than continuing to deteriorate, or how to test the proposed mechanism.

Most proposals for this drop in longevity are testable, but seldom tested. One test, which might have shown that cosmic or solar radiation reduce longevity, failed. Mice were raised in deep caves, shielded from both types of radiation. Neither those mice nor their offspring lived longer than other mice.2 Furthermore, if radiation from outer space accelerated aging, then living at a lower elevation, where one is protected by a thicker blanket of atmosphere, should increase longevity.  No such effect is known.3

Joseph Dillow’s book, The Waters Above, is probably the most complete, accurate, and up-to-date defense of any canopy theory. After explaining other problems with the “longevity claim,” Dillow concludes, “So it appears that canopy theorists have been in error when they appealed to the shielding effect of the canopy as a direct explanation for antediluvian longevity.”4 Dillow also states, “We readily admit that Genesis does not teach the existence of a pre-Flood vapor canopy.”5 [emphasis in original]

[Soldier4Christ]

A Uniformly Warm Climate. “A canopy may have given the earth a uniformly warm climate. This might explain why fossils of temperate animals and plants (such as dinosaurs and large trees) are found in Antarctica and on islands inside the Arctic Circle.”

Response: After the flood, mountains were suddenly pushed up. This shifted the poles and brought temperate regions to today’s polar regions. [For details see page 118 and Endnote 53 on page 128.] Also, during the global flood, some plants and animals may have floated to today’s polar latitudes where they were later fossilized.

Even if a canopy produced a warm polar climate, it would not satisfy another requirement for lush vegetation— sunlight in the winter. Polar nights are six-months long, and when the Sun does shine, it is always low in the sky. How could large trees and dinosaurs (requiring long food chains) survive, let alone thrive, during the long polar night?

Despite much speculation, no one knows what temperatures would exist under a canopy. Today, even experts disagree on the extent to which carbon dioxide currently warms the earth. Think how much more difficult it is to determine the warming, thousands of years ago, under a canopy of unknown thickness, reflectivity, content, and height above the earth.

Venus. “We see canopies on other planets, such as Venus.”

Response: Some planets have atmospheres, but none has a canopy. An atmosphere has contact with its planet, but a canopy is a distinct shell above the planet’s atmosphere. Venus is shrouded by a thick, opaque atmosphere, consisting primarily of carbon dioxide (96.5%), nitrogen (3.5%), and traces of other gases. Venus does not have a layer of water, or any other relatively heavy substance, above its atmosphere.

Genesis 7:11–12.  “Genesis 1:6–8a seems to speak of a water canopy that contributed to the flood. After all, Genesis 7:11–12 states that ‘... the floodgates of the sky were opened. And the rain fell ...’  A lot of rain fell from somewhere.”

Response: If this were true, similar biblical interpretations should predate Vail’s in 1874. Where are they? Quite often it is hard to see alternatives once we have learned “the accepted explanation.”

Actually, Genesis 7:11–12 says that “all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened. And the rain fell ...” Later, Genesis 8:2 states “the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained.” These events were perhaps in cause-and-effect order.6 That is, the fountains of the great deep caused extreme, torrential rain. Once the fountains stopped, this violent rain ended. Then milder, more normal, rain fell. In other words, “the rain from the sky was restrained.”

The transliteration of the Hebrew word usually used for normal rain is matar. Violent rain is geshem (used only in Genesis 7:11 and 8:2). It is sometimes accompanied by high winds and huge hailstones that can destroy mortared walls (Ezekiel 13:11–13). The hydroplate theory (pages 102–131) explains this sequence in more detailed, physical terms. We have failed to appreciate the explosiveness, magnitude, and power of “the fountains of the great deep.”

[Soldier4Christ]

Scientific Arguments Opposing a Canopy

The Pressure Problem.  A canopy holding only 40 feet of liquid water, or its equivalent weight of vapor (steam) or ice, would double the earth’s atmospheric pressure—making oxygen and nitrogen toxic to many animals, including humans.7 This is why most vapor canopy theories limit the thickness of water in their canopy to less than 40 feet.

For a vapor canopy holding this amount of water, the high pressure at its base would require that its temperature exceed a scorching 220°F. Otherwise, the vapor would condense into a liquid. A vapor canopy, whose base had that temperature, would radiate large amounts of heat to the earth’s solid surface. People, plants, and animals would absorb so much heat from all directions above that life might not survive.8 Those who believe a canopy would produce a globally mild climate have overlooked this detail.

Maintaining a canopy’s 220°F temperature at night, or worse yet, at the poles during the coolest season, adds a further difficulty.  Yes, there were seasons before the flood. [See Genesis 1:14.]9

The Heat Problem.  All canopy theories10 have another major heat problem. The larger the canopy, the greater the heat problem.

A Vapor Canopy.  Each gram of water vapor (steam) that condenses to a liquid releases about 539 calories of heat. If 6.22 x 1021 grams of water fell from a vapor canopy, enough to form a layer of water only 40 feet thick around the world, the temperature of the water and atmosphere would, as a first approximation, rise 810°F  (or 450°C).