Genesis, Noah and the Flood

This page is an excerpt from
Cycles of Salvation History

by Ulrich Utiger

Page 4

Michelangelo: the Flood

Page description
The Genesis account of the flood refers to several local floods and one global flood occurring with the primordial ocean 4 billion years ago. The flood account furthermore delivers dates of the biological evolution, Earth history and the universe such as the big bang occurring about 13.7 billion years ago. It also refers to future times.

Contents of this page
The flood cycle
The glacial era
Several paradises and floods
Flood calculus
The flood of fire of the end times
Comment this page
Bibliography

Short summary of the previous pages
Thanks to the interpretation by multi-reference, Genesis 1-3 is compatible with modern science such as cosmology, evolution and common descent, while there remains enough place for intelligent design and creation. The same multi-reference is applied to Genesis 4-11 on this page.

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THE ANCESTORS OF ISRAEL

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THE LIFE CYCLE OF THE ANGELS AND HUMANS

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The Era of the Patriarchs

The account of the flood

The flood cycle

In this chapter, we essentially restrict ourselves to the era of the patriarchs, which comprises four cycles. In these, each of the revival phases is centered around a patriarch who survives the preceding punishment phase and then becomes the ancestor of a new people (see Summary of salvation history). This is described in Genesis 4-11, the flood account, which contains multiple references. Thus the same text may refer to different cycles that happened at other epochs.

First, we need to analyze the structure of the account, that is to say, to localize the multi-significant passages referring to the four phases. The flood as punishment phase at first attracts our attention. The two phases preceding this judgment are, however, clearly distinguishable as well. The peace of the first phase is relative, for in the beginning it is expressed by a weak social violence as compared to its ulterior increase, which culminated on the day when God “saw that the wickedness of man was great on earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually”. So God decided: “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the ground, man and beast and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them” (Gen 6:5-7).

This increase of violence is perceptible through numbers: after Cain had killed his brother Abel, God cursed him to be “a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth” (Gen 4:9-12). Cain however complained of this destiny. This is why God granted him a particular protection: any possible aggressors should be revenged sevenfold (Gen 4:13-15). Some generations later a man named Lamech emerged, who no longer wanted to revenge himself sevenfold but seventy-sevenfold (Gen 4:24). This is why it is certainly not fortuitous that the age of 777 years is attributed to another Lamech, who died five years before the flood (Gen 5:28-31). This is a hidden allusion to the culmination of the violence of all the antediluvian society and does not concern Lamech personally.

Mankind therefore behaved contrary to the teaching Jesus gave to St. Peter some millennia later: “I do not say to you [to forgive] seven times, but seventy-seven times” (Mt 18:22). Although it would be bold to compare the society of Cain’s lifetime with these Christian values, we can nevertheless conclude that the violence was still more or less tolerable since God granted Cain, not revenge, but just dissuasion through the threat of a relatively weak revenge, because it is only multiplied by 7 and not by 777 at the time shortly before the flood. This is why Cain’s lifetime can be considered the relatively peaceful first phase, passing slowly into the phase of sin characterized by the increase of violence up to the flood, which therefore corresponds to the consecutive punishment phase.

The survival of Noah, his family, and the animal species he took on board his ark is the corresponding revival, which initiated a second creation. Thus Noah became a new ancestor for a renascent humanity. This is why he and his son received from God a benediction of fertility (Gen 9:1) similar to that already given to Adam and Eve (Gen 1:28).

The revival also comprised a relief from work, which equally issued from Noah (Gen 5:29) and may be a hint at the establishment of governmental structures, the distribution of different labors and therefore their rationalization. In any case, the following text mentions the birth of a civilization, namely the account of the construction of the tower of Babel (Gen 11:1-9), which is an image of an organization in the service of everyone’s welfare, although it also expresses the tendency of superpowers to megalomania.

The glacial era

Let us now analyze the multi-reference of this flood cycle, which indeed refers to an entire era of four cycles including the history of humanity’s predecessors, namely Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis (or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis if considered a subspecies of modern humans) as well as the early history of humanity. Both Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis populated first Africa and then Eurasia during the Pleistocene, which knew several climatic changes, shrinking and enlarging the ice caps of the two poles of the globe. In more southern regions of Eurasia, the very thriving tundra, which grew instead of forests, attracted a rich fauna and consequently hunting hominids migrating from Africa towards the north.

Homo erectus appeared about 1.5 million years ago (ya). This was the first hominid to leave Africa for Eurasia, approximately 0.8-0.9 million ya, during the glacial period termed the Donau, for the region of the Alps (see Wikipedia: Early human migrations). The tundra fed a megafauna similar to that of the African continent and consequently also sustained Homo erectus hunting the large mammals. When the climate became hotter once again during the Donau-Günz interglacial, the situation reversed and it became less favorable to our ancestors, for the tundra retreated and the forests again spread. As a consequence, the large mammals considerably decreased in numbers because they no longer found the same quantity of food as before and the food basis equally disappeared for Homo erectus. Afterwards, these hominids ceased to exist in Eurasia.

Homo erectus also disappeared in Africa, making room for Homo neanderthalensis some 500’000 ya. In turn the Neanderthals tempted fate and set out for Eurasia 200’000 ya when another glacial period, the Riss[44], caused the forests to withdraw again and give space to the tundra, the ideal biotope for large mammals such as the mammoth. The Neanderthals nevertheless suffered, like the earlier Homo erectus, from the interglacial, which caused forests to grow and the megafauna they hunted to decrease. They must nevertheless have been craftier and more robust than Homo erectus, for they did not die out as soon as the first climatic change arrived but survived two of them.[45] However, when the last glacial period[46] drew to an end, about 12’500 ya, the climatic changes were probably more intense, with the result that the Neanderthals abruptly disappeared together with the extinction of the major part of the megafauna accustomed to the tundra.

Each time the megafauna were in danger of dying out during an interglacial, rain played a key role in their diminution or their extinction. Researchers have often wondered why the mammoths entirely disappeared, the sole explanation of the extension of forests not being sufficient. According to Reichholf,[47] one probable hypothesis is that the pelage of mammoths was adapted to the very dry weather of the glaciations, so it did not grease itself like those of most mammals and was very sensitive to humidity. The intensified rainfall during the climatic change 12’500 ya consequently played a key role in their decimation and therefore also in that of the Neanderthals, which gives us an approximate approach to the flood.

A so-called archaic form of Homo sapiens appeared in Africa approximately 200’000 ya and began to spread over Eurasia 70’000 ya, and then also over Australia 40’000 ya and America 11’000 ya. Unlike their predecessors, they did not leave their homeland in south-eastern Africa during a glacial period but during the Riss-Würm interglacial.[48] A deeper analysis of the reasons of this exodus will allow us to establish a surprising parallel with the biblical account of the expulsion from paradise: again, according to Reichholf, the cradle of humanity of south-eastern Africa was first a sort of terrestrial paradise. Humans were at peace with nature, had practically no need to work and were naked. But when the Riss-Würm interglacial brought more rain than usual, their living conditions abruptly changed. The tsetse fly, whose bite transmits sleeping sickness, rapidly multiplied because of the increased humidity and became a real plague. Its preferred prey was the naked bodies of humans, who were finally obliged to leave Africa through the north.

Similarly to the cherubs described in Genesis 3:24, the tsetse flies therefore hunted humans out of their native country, where they were naked (Gen 2:25). Since it was colder in the north, they had to wear clothes, according to Genesis 3:21. Moreover, for the first time they experimented with agriculture in Mesopotamia, the plain of the Euphrates and the Tigris (Gen 3:17-19). This made them less dependent on hunting, but it was also necessary that humans worked the ground “in the sweat of their face” (Gen 3:19). However, through their work, they transformed this plain little by little into a new garden of Eden, which will bring us to another cycle.

The rain, which made the tsetse fly proliferate, decimating humans and hunting them out of their original country, therefore again played a key role within this context. Thus, we have another approach to the account of the flood, although the references are also contained in Genesis 2-3 and not only in Genesis 4-11. This shows that these accounts are intermingled and multi-significant, which we will further address in the next section.

If we leave the history of the Neanderthals at the point where Homo sapiens appears, there are four cycles during the glacial era with four interglacials as phases of judgment that touched the genus Homo: one concerning Homo erectus, two Homo neanderthalensis and another one Homo sapiens, who was obliged to leave Africa at the conquest of Eurasia during the second interglacial the Neanderthals survived. This is why we can consider this period as a pre-era with four cycles like the following eras of salvation history.

Several paradises and floods

Before examining what the multi-reference of the flood account still has in store, let us first consider an apparent paradox: on the one hand, Adam is explicitly described as the first man on earth, on the other hand, some passages implicitly indicate that Adam and Eve were surrounded by other people.[49] For instance, the dissuasive protection of Cain (Gen 4:15) was certainly only aimed at his equals and not at animals. He assuredly did not find his spouse (Gen 4:17) among unnamed sisters[50] but among neighboring tribes or peoples. The same passage equally indicates that Cain became the founder of a town, which would obviously have been too large just for the members of his family.[51] In addition, towns were only constructed in a very late period of human history, that is to say, with the first civilizations.

Figure 14
The superior part of the bed of the Persian Gulf as former Garden of Eden with the four confluent rivers, Euphrates, Tigris, Gihon and Pishon, according to archeologist Juris Zarins (source: Has the Garden of Eden been located at last?).

We rediscover here that Adam has multiple meanings: just as this figure refers to the predecessors of humanity, it also points to several events in human history in the contexts of both the expulsion from paradise and the flood.[52] This is why we have not one single paradise and flood but several, of which we have to determine the historical context. Concerning humanity, the first Adam is the real first man, who lived in south-eastern Africa, the first paradise, about 200’000 ya, opening the fourth cycle of the glacial era, as seen above, and ending with the first Noah. Because of the long history of this cycle, within this context the biblical patriarchs do not refer to precise persons but designate populations. The first Noah therefore represents the generations trying to escape from the sleeping sickness plague that was originally provoked by abundant rains during the Riss-Würm interglacial, a prefigurative flood, by leaving northwards for the conquest of Eurasia.

These conquerors also settled in the plain of the Euphrates and the Tigris and transformed it into a new paradise during the last glaciation. At that time, the sea level was about 120 meters lower than today, drying out the bed of the Persian Gulf, whose major part presently has an average depth of about 40 meters. Genesis 2:10 states that four rivers converged in the Garden of Eden. The Euphrates and the Tigris still have the same names today, whereas the Gihon is traditionally believed to be the Karun. The identity of Pishon is still debated, though archeologist Juris Zarins found the fossil river Wadi Batin flowing formerly in the dry Persian Gulf, where it joined the other rivers (see figure 14). These rivers correspond well to the description Genesis gives of them. When the last glaciation ended, the ice caps retreated and the sea level started to rise, submerging this Garden of Eden in the upper part of the Persian Gulf, which immediately brings to mind the flood.

Figure 15
This diagram of the mean sea level rise since the last glaciation reveals that a part in the Persian Gulf lying about 35 meters under the actual sea level was flooded about 9500 years ago (Wikipedia: Sea level rise).

However, this event does not seem to fit in the timeline supplied by the patriarch ages when they fathered their sons (Gen 5 and 11). According to this calculation, the flood took place in 2513 BC and Adam was born in 4169 BC,[54] whereas the end of the last glaciation occurred several thousands of years earlier in time, as figure 15 shows concerning the mean sea level.

As we have seen previously, there are several meanings for the patriarchs. Within the context of this second flood, they also indicate generations of tribes, as in the previous one. This is why their whole ages must be added to calculate a timeline of this flood cycle. This has to be done from Adam to Abraham because he is the type of a new Adam, as outstanding ancestor of a new people. Thus we get 11’571 years, which – in order to obtain a date in BC – have to be added to the birth in 4169 BC of the last or third Adam because he can be considered a prefigurative Abraham just as the Abraham whose birth is obtained by adding the patriarchs’ ages. So the birth of the second Adam was in 11’571 + 4169 BC = 15’740 BC, say at about 18’000 ya, according to figure 16. This hits the last glacial maximum when the sea level starts rising slowly, according to figure 15, but still without flooding the Persian Gulf paradise.

According to the same calculation, the second Noah was born in 15’740 BC – 7625 = 8115 BC and the flood took place 600 years later in 7515 BC, say at about 9500 ya. This is when the sea level reached about 35 meters below the actual sea level, according to figure 15. The deepest point of the Persian Gulf is about 90 meters, so it was flooded over a long period from about 14’000 ya. Some parts of it are very flat, hence major flood events may have occurred in conjunction with special meteorological conditions. The date of 9500 ya may point to such an event in the upper part, where the four rivers converged, eventually touching a dense population.

When the sea level rise slowed down about 6000 ya, we enter the new context of a third flood starting with the third Adam, whose birth is calculated according to the ages when the patriarchs fathered their sons. We are at about 4000 BC, the date young Earth creationists consider the time of the six days of creation of the whole world. However, this was when the history of Sumer began. This is why the generations from the third Adam symbolize the Sumerian people who survived a series of important inundations in the plain of the two rivers from about 4000 to 2600 BC (see The Flood: Mesopotamian Archaeological Evidence). These inundations may be the origin of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Figure 16
Chronology of the patriarchs allowing the calculation of several floods (see floodchrono1.xls).

However, this third flood became a political event: towards 2500 BC, Eannatum of Lagash conquered all of Sumer, foreshadowing its final fall, and towards 2340 BC the Sumerian empire temporarily disappeared, succumbing to the Akkadians, Semitic tribes who assimilated the way of life of the Sumerians thereafter. But this did not last for long because the Akkadian empire in turn collapsed, towards 2230 BC, under the invasion of the Gutian people, highlanders from present-day Kurdistan, who committed massive destruction and only adopted the Sumerian civilization superficially. From 2150 BC on, the Sumerians knew a last and short rebirth, invading all Mesopotamia under the reign of Goudea, recovering the hegemony during the third dynasty of Ur and reaching their zenith. In 2006 BC, however, under unceasing invasions of Elamites and especially of Semites, the Sumerian empire definitively crumbled and the first Babylonian empire, constituted of Semitic peoples, began to take shape after 2000 BC.

Figure 17
The flat bathymetry of the Persian Gulf suggesting major flood events some thousands of years ago. The white area was flooded about 14’000 years ago and is at 80 meters below the actual sea level. The other levels indicate 60, 40 and 20 meter below actual sea level (source: Persian Gulf Once Dry, Green, and Inhabited by Humans).

These different waves of Semitic peoples breaking on the plain of the two rivers, like the tidal waves during the floods after 4000 BC, constitute the continuation of the judgment phase concerning the Sumerians. It must have been survived by the third Noah, since according to Genesis it took place around 2513 BC, a date that corresponds with the first submission of Sumer to Eannatum around 2500, and the first Semitic invasion in 2340. This is why we have to correlate the survival of the third Noah with the ascension of the Semitic culture. His survival constitutes the revival phase and the Semitic ascension the beginning phase of the next cycle, centered around the patriarch Abraham.

Flood calculus

In this section, some dates regarding the evolution of the universe, Earth and life are calculated through the patriarchs’ ages and compared with the scientific timeline. Although the results lie within the estimated time intervals of the specific events, it is not possible to determine conclusively whether the calculations point to real events because the intervals are mostly very large. Despite this uncertainty, it seems improbable that this correspondence of the obtained biblical data with the scientific timeline is just a coincidence. I apologize for the mathematics involved in this section.

Since we can obtain two different dates for Adam and the flood (by adding either the whole patriarchs’ ages or the ages when the patriarchs fathered their sons), it is straightforward to ask if these dates can be extrapolated to obtain the date of birth of the first Adam or even his predecessors. Evidently this can be done in numerous ways. However, imposing some conditions reduces this number considerably. One natural condition is that the same time structure be kept. Let

F3 = time from 3^rd flood to Abraham born in 2160 BC
A3 = time from 3^rd Adam to 3^rd flood
F2 = time from 2^nd flood to 3^rd Adam
A2 = time from 2^nd Adam to 2^nd flood

and accordingly

F1 = time from 1^st flood to 2^nd Adam
A1 = time from 1^st Adam to 1^st flood
F0 = time from some other flood to 1^st Adam
A0 = time from some other Adam to some other flood.

Thus we require that A3/F3 = A1/F1, F2/A3 = F0/A1 and A2/F2 = A0/F0. This keeps the ratios of the first four known elements and yields three equations defining three variables out of F1, A1, F0 and A0, which allows us to freely define the fourth variable. It is straightforward to ask that F1 depend on all four known quantities F3, A3, F2 and A2 rather than to make it depend only on a restricted number or even on none of them because they are the only dates provided by the Bible, so all should be taken into account. The simplest method is to define F1 as the sum of them. This solution is outstanding because it must not be a complicated dependency, which can be chosen in an infinite number of ways. Furthermore, this yields an exponential structure, according to figure 3. Thus

F1 = F3 + A3 + F2 + A2
A1 = F1 × A3 / F3
F0 = A1 × F2 / A3
A0 = F0 × A2 / F2.

Consequently, the date of F1 has the same date as A2. This is why a flood date may also be a date indicating a step in human evolution and vice versa. This fits in with the fact that the time after the third Adam was a flood time as well as the expulsion from the paradise (see here and here). For an accurate calculation, it is necessary to add the nine months of pregnancy from conception to the birth for the 19 patriarchs from Adam to Terah. We thus get 4169 BC + 19 × 9/12 = 4183.25 BC for the birth of the third Adam and

F3 = 360.5
A3 = 1662.75
F2 = 3346
A2 = 8225.

This yields

F1 = 13’594
A1 = 62’701
F0 = 126’176
A0 = 310’160.

Summing them up from the birth of the second Adam in 15’740 BC + 19 × 9/12 = 15’754 BC (which is the date of both A2 and F1), we get the three following dates: 80’455, 206’631 and 516’791 ya (see floodchrono2.xls). As already mentioned, Homo neanderthalensis appeared in Africa about 500’000 ya and set out for Eurasia 200’000 ya. This is also the date for the appearance of an archaic form of Homo sapiens. The 80’455 date could refer to a modern form of Homo sapiens, which finally led to what is known as behavioral modernity, a major cultural step forward in human evolution.

The same extrapolation can again be applied, yielding three other dates: 2.88, 7.64 and 19.3 million years ago (Ma). The second and third dates hardly point to outstanding events in human or geological evolution. The first date however corresponds well to the Pleistocene, which dates to 2.6 Ma and is characterized as a period of important climate fluctuations. However, the beginning of these fluctuations cannot be determined precisely. A date of about 2.9 Ma is also possible, as figure 18 shows. Thus it appears that the patriarchs’ ages provide eight dates: the traditional dates of 2513 and 4169 BC, and additionally 9500, 15’740, 80’455, 206’631, 516’791 ya and 2.88 Ma.

Figure 18
An important period of glacial and interglacial changes during about 2.9 million years is revealed through measures of deep sea sediment cores (source: Wikipedia, Geologic temperature record).

As we have seen, the different floods must be understood as a series of punctuated events spanning a long period. In this sense, the original flood was just a local event serving as a prototype. This is why the whole time of the Pleistocene (extended to 2.88 Ma) may be considered a flood time of alternating glacials and interglacials causing several coastal floods all over the planet. At this point, it is interesting to use the data from chapters 7 and 8 of Genesis, as resumed by figure 19.

Figure 19
Chronology of the flood

Therefore, from entering the ark to the drying of the Earth’s land surface, 377 days passed, taking into account that the months have 30 days, because 150 days are counted from the seventeenth day of the second month to the seventeenth day of the seventh month (Gen 7:11; 8:3-4). This is the literal duration of the flood, which can be scaled obtaining the time of the Pleistocene, that is, the 377 days of the literal flood become the 2.88 Ma of the Pleistocene, which is considered an entire period of flood. This is why the literal time of 1662.75 years from Adam’s birth to the flood can be scaled correspondingly, which should yield a date in relation with the creation of the universe because it was created simultaneously with the garden of Eden and Adam according to a literal interpretation of the second account of creation (Gen 2:5-15). We require again that the ratios of the literal and scaled events be the same. Thus

where x is the time from the scaled event in relation with the creation of the universe to the Pleistocene. This yields

We obtain x = 4.641 billion years taking 365.25636 days for a solar year. To this number must still be added the 2.88 million years of the Pleistocene because we want a date in years ago. This yields 4.6444 billion years ago (Ga), a date that perfectly corresponds to the formation of the solar system.

In fact, the age of the Sun is dated to 4.57±0.02 Ga through main sequence and nucleocosmochronology, which refers to the starting of the nuclear activity of the Sun. However, the pre- solar nebula, out of which the Sun and planets formed, is older than this. It was formed by the supernova of a massive star or of several providing all the chemical elements naturally existing on Earth. After the early condensation of this cloud, about 100 million years before its nuclear activity began, the Sun became a T Tauri star. Thus we are in the realm of the biblical 4.64 Ga.

T Tauri stars also emit a strong stellar wind, from which a connection can be made to the wind God let blow over the Earth after 157 days: it may first refer to the formation of the spiral solar disk before the nuclear activity because spiral galaxies and stars in formation resemble whirlwinds, as we have already seen in The Milky Way. Thereafter, the stellar wind blows away the dust and gases out of the spiral disk, leaving the planets and pieces of rock resistant to it. In this sense, the early Earth was “dried up” from mainly hydrogen and water, according to Genesis 8:1-4.

This allows us to apply again the flood chronology on a still wider context: since the 157^th day of the flood refers to the formation of the Sun because of the solar wind drying up the Earth, the first day of all the 377 days dates back to another event in relation to the creation of the universe: considering the 377^th day as the present,[58] we assume that the date z of the first day corresponds to the length of 377 days. Assuming that the birth of our Sun took place at y = 4.6444 Ga, the time z – y corresponds to the 157 days. Requiring that the ratios of the flood days and the scaled events be the same, we get the equation

which yields

Thus we have z = 7.9588 Ga, which points to the formation of our galaxy, the Milky Way, of which the ages of the stars in the thin outer disk are estimated to 8.8 ± 1.7 Ga, while the inner halo of the galaxy is estimated to about 13.5 ± 0.7 Ga. So it is not clear whether the date of 7.9588 Ga refers to a particular event or to a mean value of the age of the outer disk, although it has something to do with our galaxy because, after the solar system, this is the next level referred to by Genesis 1 (see in particular figure 5).

In any case, this intermediate date can be used for the calculation of an event reaching a still more distant past: on a larger scale, galaxy formation is similar to star formation. Like the Milky Way, galaxies often form a spiral disk, which also resembles a whirlwind. There is also strong radiation and particle wind coming out of the galactic center. This is why the formation of our galaxy may still be considered a 157-days event and the above formula again be applied taking y = 7.9588 Ga from the former calculation. We get z = 13.638 Ga and go directly to the creation of the physical universe, which is estimated to have occurred at 13.75 ± 0.17 Ga with the big bang (see Wikipedia: Age of the universe). So our result lies very well within the scope of this estimation, this all the more given that the big bang is the next and last level according to Genesis 1.

Another series of data can be calculated from the flood numbers using the above formula in a more general way, with y corresponding to an arbitrary flood day d rather than being restricted to the 157^th day. Thus we have

from which follows

and

We start with z = 4644 Ma and get the solar system timeline as in figure 20. From this line we take the date of the 157-days event for y and calculate z = 7959 Ma, getting the Milky Way timeline and so on. This way, several lines of dates can be calculated recursively.

Figure 20
Each of these dates (in million years ago) is calculated recursively according to the same formula. The non-bold dates are probably meaningless (see floodchrono3.xls).

The dove that is sent out from the ark, coming back with an olive branch, may be an allusion to the first seven major steps in the evolution of life. This happens on the 285^th day after Noah enters the ark. On the line of the big bang, this time corresponds to about 3.3 Ga. It is estimated that the first fossils of cyanobacteria in stromatolites date back to 3.5 Ga. However, this date of the first prokaryotes is not very accurate because only fossils dated back to 2.7 Ga are certain (see The First Life on Earth). Other sources give even earlier dates of up to 3.8-4 Ga, but these dates are based on the hypothetical background of abiogenesis.

The previous context is the Milky Way, dated to about 7.9 Ga as seen above. On this scale, the 285-days event occurs at about 1.9 Ga. This points to a time range during which the first eukaryotes appeared. The next date is in the context of the solar system, which yields 1.1 Ga as the possible step regarding multicellular plants. In the same manner, the next dates recursively obtained are: 661 Ma, pointing to multicellular animals, and especially 386 Ma, pointing to the first tree forests of progymnosperms appearing on land during the Frasnian stage. Then, 225 Ma may point to gymnosperms, and 131 Ma to angiosperms and the subsequent coevolution that took place in the animal kingdom.

A final interesting series of dates can be extracted in the context of the solar system: the seventh day points to 4.56 Ga, a date that fits well with the start of Earth’s history. Between the seventh and the forty-seventh days (4 Ga) it rains. It is not clear what this rain could be, but 4 Ga is the time when the Earth was sufficiently cool to allow the primordial ocean to form by outgassing water vapor from the crust. According to Genesis 7:17-24, the rise of the ocean took place during 110 more days, whether with or without rain is not clear. The geological record of the Archean is not very accurate but there is nevertheless some evidence that the primordial ocean covered all the Earth’s surface at some stage, which must therefore be considered the only real global flood. On the 157^th day (2.7 Ga) the ark comes to rest on the Mount Ararat. This may be an allusion to the first cratons, continental shelfs and coasts. And the tops of mountains appearing out of the ocean on the 231^st day (1.8 Ga) may refer to the first supercontinent Columbia, which finally led to the next supercontinent Rodinia on the 285^th day (1.1 Ga) when the dove finally found firm ground.

Unfortunately, the possible scientific dates of these events lie within very large time intervals, so it is not possible to conclusively determine whether this calculation is accurate, although it is surprising that the dates obtained through the calculation lie within the possible scientific intervals.

The flood of fire of the end times

Finally, the account of the flood also refers to the end times. It is Jesus himself who suggests this:

As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They ate, they drank, they were given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. [...] So will it be on the day when the Son of man is revealed (Lk 17:26-30).

The day of the Son of Man means the glorious return of Christ. As we will see in The Era of the Spiritual Kinship, this will be a time of war, which can be compared to a flood of fire, especially if nuclear weapons are used. In this case, it will also cause a deluge of radioactive rain, which can be considered a devastating water flood.[59] In the book of Revelation, this war is predicted as a judgment against Babylon, which is often referred to in connection with the Babylonian exile by the ancient prophets. Revelation uses Babylon as a timeless synonym for any society at the height of its decadence, for example, the society of the Tower of Babel. This is why Babylon is in particular applied to the end of the world because at this time the decadence will culminate.

Isaiah, for example, writes concerning Babylon:

Wail, for the day of the Lord is near, as destruction from the Almighty it will come. Therefore all hands will be feeble, and every man’s heart will melt, and they will be dismayed. Pangs and agony will seize them, they will be in anguish like a woman in travail. They will look aghast at one another, their faces will be aflame (Isa 13:8).

And elsewhere:

For behold, the Lord will come in fire, and his chariots like the stormwind, to render his anger in fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire (Isa 66:15).

St. John writes that the ten apocalyptic kings will “devour the flesh” of Babylon, the prostitute, “and burn her up with fire, for God has put into their hearts to carry out his purpose” (Rev 17:12-18). This implicitly states that the ten kings, in order to destroy Babylon, have the power to use the fire of God, which can hardly be attributed to anything other than nuclear weapons.

This flood of fire will therefore not only touch a small region of our planet, as in the time of Noah, but concern a large part of humanity, according to Genesis 6:7. Mankind will become “rarer than fine gold” (Isa 13:12). Faith resists fire like gold (1 Co 3:12-15). This is why it relates to the people that will survive thanks to their faith. They will find refuge in the saving Church, the ark of Noah, which will shelter people of all colors and nations from around the world, like the species that found a place in the ark (Gen 6:20).

Because of this prophecy, Genesis does not record that such a global deluge ever really happened during the ancient times of humanity. The prototype of the flood may just be the survival of a family and some domestic animals in a ship during the Mesopotamian inundations after 4000 BC (see here). This also explains why, after the flood, God decides never again to exterminate the inhabitants of the Earth (Gen 8:21), for if this had been valid for ancient humanity, there should effectively have been a worldwide flood in the past, which not only does not correspond to reality but also would contradict the prophecy of the future flood of fire. This is why the globality of the flood only refers to the end-time judgment.

The revival following this war opens on the millennial reign. The new world order described by Genesis 9 consequently applies in the first place to the future, that is to say, to the time of peace during a thousand years, which reflects eternity after the Last Judgment.

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