Session 1 – The Pre Flood World In this session we will be looking at the pre flood world, what was it like, what does the Bible say? Just remember, we only have so much information on what the pre flood world looks like and what the environment was like, but we will look at what we have

2 Peter 3:3-6N: “knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water.”

The Bible says that the scoffers willingly are ignorant of the Creation and the Flood, and while we’ve looked at these topics from the Biblical interpretation standpoint, we will now spend the next six weeks looking at them from a science/history standpoint The world we live in today is very, very different from the earth when God originally created it (until the flood)

What did the world look like? To begin with we need to acknowledge that we don’t know for sure what things would look like in the pre flood world, but we can get some information by looking at the world today, and seeing what scripture says There is a creation theory (which we will discuss again later) that is similar to the secular idea of Pangaea, and says before the flood all the continents were connected

Genesis 1:9: “Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.” Part of the creation narrative in Genesis 1 may imply this type of geography

It would make sense (whether this type of Pangaea is right or not) that the land masses on earth were connected and accessible to humans at the time of the creation This can also be explained by lower water levels before the flood, which is also very possibly (and likely under different theories) It’s also possible that there was much more land at that point than today (This image of ocean elevation will help visualize it)

Not only was the geography different at that time, but there is good evidence the biosphere was quite a bit different Genesis 1:11: “And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so.”

The verse does seem to indicate that plants covered the planet (the dry land) and there weren’t huge areas (while maybe minor ones) of deserts and ice sheets that prevent plant life from flourishing We know that under the ice in Antarctica and Greenland there is plant life (Palm trees) and there used to be much vegetation there

Why is this important to look over? Does this really matter to people? One claim made against creationism has to do with the amount of coal that we find around the world in coal beds Most people now know that coal is formed from plants (plus heat and pressure)

According to creationists and flood geology, the coal beds around the world were formed during the flood when all the plants in the world were buried The problem is if you take all the plants in the world today and turned them into coal, you don’t get nearly as much coal as you need to create the coal beds we find However, if conditions were different before the flood, the problem is solved!

Not only was there probably more land, and not nearly as much ice (or deserts) to prevent forests from growing, the climate may have also been different and helpful One popular idea that creationists have had for a long time is the canopy theory The canopy theory says there may have been a layer of water in the atmosphere (solid, liquid or gas is debated) that caused drastic differences in the environment

Does the Bible support this idea of a canopy over the earth? Genesis 1:6: “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” Continents divide the waters?

Genesis 1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. Genesis 1:20 “And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.”

If this interpretation is correct there would be a layer somewhere in the upper atmosphere (although no one says it’s enough to flood the world) It needs to be understood that this canopy is unproven and creationists are still working out how it could have worked

There is also other ways to interpret those verses referring to the waters above the firmament, Russell Humphreys in his cosmology takes a completely different approach to where that water would be If however this canopy did exist (and came down at the time of the flood) it would be helpful in explaining some things that we will look at later in this session

Other possible differences in the earths atmosphere before the flood could have been increased oxygen levels and/or increased atmospheric pressure If you had this situation before the flood the earth would act as one big hyperbaric chamber which would greatly effect the biosphere here on earth Is there any evidence for this?

Increased oxygen supplies One possible line of evidence for comes from amber (fossilized tree sap) bubbles that show increased amounts of oxygen compared to our atmosphere today Increased pressure This increased atmospheric pressure would explain how Pterodactyls were able to fly in the fast but couldn’t fly today (if they existed)

If these conditions did exist its been well documented that it would give plants the ability to grew much bigger than they did today, which would also explain all the coal that we see around the world Keep in mind though, that the canopy theory cannot be proven, but it is one way to possibly answer some of the questions we have about the pre flood world

What if the sky was colorful?

Mankind before the flood According to the Bible God created one man and one women (Adam and Eve) and everyone alive today are descendants from them Despite the Lego Bible theology, God only made two humans on day six!

Where did Cain get his wife? Genesis 4:16-17: “Then Cain went away from the presence of the L ORD and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch.” Did Cain meet his wife after leaving his family? Why was he worried people would kill him as he travelled away?

Genesis 3:20: “The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.” We know from scripture that Eve is the mother of all living, which means Cain had to marry a descendant of Eve (his sister) People seem to get confused and think that Adam and Eve only had three children (Cain, Able, Seth) which is completely wrong, they had many others

Genesis 5:1-5: “This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.”

We know that when Cain kills able he is already married to his wife, all it says is he “knew” her and bore children (knew her is a reference to having relations) The Bible does not tell us the age of Cain or Able at this time, it does not say Seth was the third born child, it only says Cain killed Able here, for all we know they could be 40+ years old when this happens, and Able (and many other siblings) could have kids by now

How many children could you have in forty years? if you start as a full grown adult like Adam and Eve, and you don’t stop reproducing until your hundreds of years old God commands them to be fruitful and multiply, if they had a child every 1/half years within those forty years they could have 26 children by the time this happens But not only would you have 26 children, many of them could reproduce in that time

If you had 26 children of Adam and Even in the first 40 years, half of them will be reproducing by the time the forty years is over (those born earlier) The numbers grow very quickly, there could have been hundreds of children of people by the time this happened (they also could have been 80 for all we are told, which makes the numbers much, much larger)

Who was Cain afraid of? His other brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, etc. Where did he get his wife from? He married his sister, there is no other option But wait! There are laws in the Bible against marrying your brother/sister! Deuteronomy 27:22: “Cursed be anyone who lies with his sister, whether the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’”

Why is it okay in this instance to marry close blood relatives? It actually happens again later with cousins after the blood The law in Deuteronomy wasn’t given for another years, and at the time they did this it wasn’t a problem! When we get to Deuteronomy God knows there are problems with marrying relatives, so he gives a law against it

There were no problems at this point in world history, there were no defects in the genome that would cause mutations if brother/sister were to marry Did people live to be over 900 years old? Genesis 5:27: Thus all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died.” It wasn’t just him though, it was quite common to make it to 900 years

Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died. Thus all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died. Thus all the days of Enosh were 905 years, and he died. Thus all the days of Kenan were 910 years, and he died.

Thus all the days of Jared were 962 years, and he died. Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. Thus all the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died. Thus all the days of Mahalalel were 895 years, and he died.

How are these people before the flood able to live to 900 years, when today we are lucky to make it to 100 years Some people have suggested these are lunar “years” (which is a month really) This would make the average age when they passed away not around 900, but 900 divided by 12 = 75 (more like today) Could this be the answer to the puzzle?

No. To put it nicely it can’t be. Here are a few verses that cause a problem (from the same chapter and context as the last ones) Gen 5: 15: “When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he fathered Jared” Gen 5: 21: “When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah” If these are really months, that would make these guys 5 when they had their kids

Some people have suggested that hyperbaric environments with a canopy to block solar radiation would be able to explain these long ages of humans before the flood Blocking solar radiation (a lot of it) would cause mutation in humans throughout their lives to be extremely slow Another theory takes a genetic approach when explaining long ages

Dr. Sanford wrote a book called Genetic Entropy explain how if we go back in time and look at the data in the Bible of ages, it makes sense if we start with a perfect genome, and over time mutations enter in No canopy is required, just a clean genome to start with

There is much more we can talk about on the topic of Genetics We will save it for a later session so we can go into greater detail Genetically there isn’t a problem with pre flood people living to 900 years, because God wouldn’t have created the genome with all the problems it has today

Memory Verse Genesis 3:20: “The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.”