The Genesis Cataclysm - W. Joseph Stallings

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Longman III and Walton, Lost World of the Flood, 145–49. In their particular case, Longman and Walton believe that the Noahic narrative actually does have some sort of historical event behind it (possibly some sort of spectacular local event or events), but they “cannot be sure” exactly what it may have been because “we have [physical] evidence of more than one flood that would be potential candidates for the inspiration of the story” (145); yet, they are also equally convinced that “there is absolutely no [physical] evidence for a worldwide flood” (146).

      16. Longman III and Walton, Lost World of the Flood, 92–93. Moreover, they also state earlier in the same book: “The deepest reality, that which is most true, must not be constrained by what eyewitnesses can attest or demonstrate to have ‘actually happened.’ The accounts in Genesis 1–11 can be affirmed as having real events as their referents, but the events themselves (yes, they happened) find their significance in the interpretation that they are given in the biblical text. That significance is not founded in their historicity but in their theology; not in what happened (or even that something did happen) but in why it happened. What was God doing? That is where the significance is to be found” (17). As Longman and Walton try to gently navigate around this matter, they seem to be claiming that the presentation of the historical referent itself (if one does even exist) may be less true than the “most true” theological interpretation of that referent. In other words, the implication is that there can be a significant interpretive why without a fully historical what of which to interpret, or a significant theological meaning of something with or without the actual occurrence of that something. As such, they appear to assert that, regardless as to whether or not the Noahic Flood actually happened on the Earth as it is presented in the biblical text, we do have its story in the Bible; therefore, there is great theological truth that we can and should learn from it simply because it is a story. Unfortunately, however, this makes the Noahic narrative more akin to a fairy tale with a moral attached than to a historical narrative through which God actually worked. For many of us of particularly non-Gnostic persuasion, such a viewpoint will render even the theological lessons quite hollow and without much substance.

      17. Montgomery is a renowned theologian (and attorney) who specializes in Christian apologetics.

      18. Montgomery, “Karl Barth and Contemporary Theology of History,” 45.

      19. Note that there are certainly times when phenomenological language is used in the descriptive scriptural presentation of certain historical events (e.g., the creation narrative of Genesis 1–2). However, such use does not negate the literal historicity of those events in any way. We strongly demonstrate this notion in The Genesis Column (2018).

      20. Davidson, “The Genesis Flood Narrative,” 52. Both Barth and Bultmann incorporate a more contemporary variation of dualism in their attempts to grapple with biblical history. We will briefly discuss Barthian neo-dualism, in particular, in the next chapter.

      21. While there are various literary genres represented in the total body of Holy Scripture, we concur with Kaiser (mentioned above, in Davidson) that the text of Genesis 1–11 (inclusive of the Noahic text of Genesis 6–9) is intended to be a form of historical narrative prose (for further on this, see Kaiser, “The Literary Form of Genesis 1–11,” 48–65). This means that it is to be understood similarly, not only to the other historical OT texts, but also to the NT events of Jesus’s life as documented in the Gospels as well as to the events of the early apostolic church as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. For instance, it might be duly noted that most of the tangible artifacts, etc. inherent to the human life of Christ as Jesus of Nazareth are now removed from our empirical experience or hidden from our view. This in no way negates the absolute requirement of the faith for God Incarnate to have actually lived, died, and risen in true and literal physical human form. In fact, for many, this is the basal motivation for the classic search for the historical Jesus, which continues from generation to generation. If God did not actually become physically incarnate in the human person of Jesus of Nazareth, then the Jesus Christ of Scripture and all things attributed to him in the scriptures are completely irrelevant. This is likewise certainly true with the Flood of Noah.

      22. Montgomery, Faith Founded on Fact, 29.

      23. And, by the way, if that be the case, so are we (1 Cor 15:12–28).

      24. God has willfully provided for his Kingdom actions to be accomplished within the unrestrained purview of space-time history. It has always been his ongoing plan and practice not to keep either himself or his works at a place of distance from his creatures (nor even from the enemy). Thus, he knows that, in so doing, both himself and his works will certainly be attacked and even exposed to the risk of discreditation; yet God, who is himself Truth, is willing and able to do this because he also knows that he and all of his works are completely and perfectly trustworthy and true and will ultimately be borne out as such in the plain sight of all the universe.

      25. By the way, there are other resurrection events directly related to Jesus. Before Jesus died and was raised from the dead, the scriptures proclaim that Jesus himself raised, at least, three other deceased people: the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11–17), Jairus’ daughter (Matt 9:18–26; Mark 5:21–43; Luke 8:40–56), and Lazarus (John 11:1–44). It is upon physical resurrection which hinges everything about the authenticity of the Christian faith; yet, we cannot help but wonder just how truly and evidentially believable any of this can be to the global Flood disavowist? Afterall, apart from the record of Scripture and the ongoing testimony of the Church, what definitive empirical evidence is there in the natural world for any of these resurrections by Christ—or even for the resurrection of Christ?

      26. Note that Jesus also spoke quite “a-matter-of-factly” about the historical Noah himself and the Flood in the parallel texts of Matthew 24:37–39 and Luke 17:27 in terms of both its sure historical occurrence and its connection to a certain just-as-sure future occurrence.

      27. Osgood, “The Date of Noah’s Flood,” 10–13. See also Sarfati, Refuting Compromise, 241.

      28. As an OEC, Ross, for instance, seems to support a Flood timing of about 20,000 to 30,000 years ago. See Ross, A Matter of Days, 223. His calculation is based on a combination of certain specific historical markers (such as a relative dating for Abraham at about four thousand years ago and the interpretation of the Peleg text of Genesis 10:25 to refer to the breaking up of the Bering Strait land bridge at about 11,000 years ago) and the assumption that the life spans recorded in the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 are proportional to the actual passage of time. As shall be shown later, we advocate for a Flood time even much further back in time than does Ross.

      29. Ross possibly disputes this. See Ross, The Genesis Question, 159–60. Here he states: “The assumption that clear evidence ‘should’ remain must be challenged. The Flood, though massive, lasted but one year and ten days. A flood of such brief duration typically does not leave a deposit substantial enough to be positively identified thousands of years later. . . . a one-year Flood in the region of Mesopotamia, even to a depth of two or three hundred feet, may leave behind insufficient evidence for a positive geological identification ten to forty thousand years later.” First, keep in mind that Ross’s skepticism is grounded in a regional Flood view rather than in a global

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