The Deluge: How can it be?

Genesis 7:12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. 13 In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark; 17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. 18 And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. 19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. 20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.

First off the earth is a sphere. Christopher Columbus knew that. He read it in the Bible!

Isaiah 40:22 "It is he (God) who sits above the circle of the earth..."

The earth for all practical purposes is a sphere with no more egg-shape than a billiard ball according to scientific resources:

Diameter of Earth at the equator is 12,756.2 kilometers. 
Diameter of Earth through the poles is 12,713.6 kilometers. 
Difference of 42.6 kilometers.

The "bulge" is at the equator and that's due to the gravitational pull of the moon creating the tidal effect.

God knew the earth wasn't flat long before it was proven so, so let's "assume" God knows what he's talking about:

Job 22:14 (ESV) "Thick clouds veil him, so that he does not see, and he walks on the vault of heaven."

I would suppose that God has a good view of what he created! Yes, he's "upstairs", but he's not "the man upstairs"! He's beyond definition. God is inexplicable and if we could explain him, we would be as God ourselves!

Let's look at the first oddity. Verse 20 says the water did "prevail" fifteen cubits upward. It would appear that it rose only fifteen cubits above its normal level. The Hebrew "long cubit" is 20.4" (distance from the elbow to the fingertips), hence the waters prevailed 300 feet. Of course no mountain would be covered at that depth! If we look at some other translations it reads a little more differently:

Genesis 7:20 (ESV) "The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep."

All the "high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered". Mount Everest in nearby Tibet is 29,038 feet tall. Assuming it was around the same height in Noah's time, the water would have reached the depth of 29,328 feet or so. The earth at the equator is approximately 20,531 miles. Hence, the water rose 5.5 miles above it's normal or 11 miles larger diameter. That's a lot of water! The earth increased in size as much as the a minute 0.05% ! Is that possible?

The water now on earth is likely the same water that was there in Noah's time plus some minor amounts created by the chemical reaction of hydrogen with water. Some water was taken into space with our missions. That too is negligible! However, for the most part what we have now is what we had then! The mass of the water doesn't change and there are only negligible volumetric changes! The water cycle changes how much is in the ocean and how much in the heavens, but over time we still have the same amount of moisture on the earth. God spoke of this hydrologic (evaporation along with electrolysis of lightening and condensation) cycle:

Job 36:27 (ESV) "For he draws up the drops of water; they distill his mist in rain, 28 which the skies pour down and drop on mankind abundantly."

Ecclesiastes 1:6 "The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. 7 All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. 

Isaiah 40:12 (ESV) "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?" 

Isaiah 55:10 (ESV) “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater..."

These verses accurately describe the hyrdrologic cycle which scientist (Nils Wallerius) discovered circa 1739. (God knew what he created in a day, but man took 6000 years to figure it out!)

Looking at the volumetric equation for a sphere, O'll calculate the approximate  deluge:

V =4

3

π

r

3

Since we're looking at the change in the volumes we have 4/3 x 3.14159 x (20542/2)cubed minus 4/3 x 3.14159 x (20531/2) cubed = 4583647250487- 4531359977065 = 52287273422 cubic feet of water. There are 7.48052 gallons per cubic foot of water. Hence this is an additional 6,989,791,274 gallons of water! That would fill a pool and a half for sure. That's 121,350 gallons a minute worldwide. The surface of the earth is 196.9 million square miles. That's 35.5 gallons per minute per square mile. That's possible and God did it, but how?

Let's look at the choices: (Noting that there was no water created. If so, it would still be there. water mass is a constant).

1) The polar ice caps melted adding to the amount rained.
2) Earthquakes in the depths heaved the water out of the oceans faster than it drained back, along with the rain.
3) The moon shifted its orbit and created vast tidal waves which added to the rain. 
4) If the entire earth was covered over the highest mountain, it could be that they were, but not all at once. In other words, with time the depth of the water varied at different places on the earth. 
5) Only the world known by mankind, the inhabited world, flooded.
6) Purely a one-time miracle of God.

From "How Stuff Works" if the Antarctic Polar Ice Cap melted they say this:

"There are 326 million trillion gallons of water on the entire earth. If the Antarctic melted the water would rise 200 feet. At the other end of the world, the North Pole, the ice is not nearly as thick as at the South Pole. The ice floats on the Arctic Ocean. If it melted sea levels would not be affecte­d (sic)."

 If the frozen poles melted the depth of the oceans would only increase by 200 feet. We're looking for 5.5 miles of increased depth of water! Melting ice caps don't even come close to the volume needed. 

Let's look at "guess" # 2: Earthquakes caused tsunamis which heaved water from the oceans to the land mass. Scripture says something about that:

Genesis 7:11 (ESV) 11"In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened."

Tsunamis aggravated the hydrologic cycle. Rather than waiting on evaporation and condensation only to occur, earthquakes pushed water forth and i covered the land. Japan got a taste of this of this on its Pacific coast in 2011. However, of the 65 documented cases of tsunamis in history, the worst known was the Lituya Bay megatsunami, in 1958 which had a record height of 1740 ft. Still far from 5.5 miles deep, but it does show the possibility in Noah's time of a flood of that magnitude!

This explanation is a candidate for the most plausible from scripture because it could be that way and that's what God said in Genesis! That also allows for the oceans to empty for a time and become the receptacle when the water receded, leaving the total mass of the water constant!

Guess #3 is that the moon moved closer to the earth for some reason, causing great tidal waves. The moon being in close proximity, would exert a stronger gravitational pull causing the earth to fracture and the internal pressures to cause the aforementioned tsunamis. Here, we have a plausible event which fits scripture without specifically mentioning that the moon was moved. Tidal waves, added to the tsunamis, would have caused the depths heaved onto land. That would make it possible that it was indeed a world-wide event. The waters would recede when the moon for whatever reason resumed its orbit. Since God created the "lesser light" (the moon) it's understandable that he was able to move it for a reason. After all he made the earth and moon stand still one day in Joshua's time:

Joshua 10:12 "At that time Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, “Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon." 13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. 14 There has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel."

There seems to be a problem! "There has been no day like it before or since"! However, in Noah's time, the sun and moon would not have stopped, but the moon only would have altered it's course. Scripture doesn't say that the moon shifted, but neither does God specifically say how he parted the waters for Moses. It was by a strong east wind, but what caused the east wind to change. God didn't say what manner of climate control he used. Likewise, he could have used the moon to cause the quakes and the flood!

Guess #4 is that the entire earth flooded, but not specifically all at the same time. Guess # 3 (moon shifted)  explains this phenomena. This guess doesn't contradict scripture and it is in reality how guess #3 worked,

Guess #5 is that the flood was only over the world known to man. Looking again at the flood story:

Gen 7:19 "And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered."

Remembering that God's word was inspired to the patriarchs who wrote scripture. Moses wrote this. Did he get it wrong and how did he get it?

Methuselah, the longest lifespan ever, lived 969 years and died in Jewish year 1656, the year of the flood in Noah's time. ("The World before the Flood"). It's likely that he died in the flood! Noah lived 10 generations up to Abram's time who would have been a young man by those standards (about 58)!  That leaves 476 years between the birth of Abraham and Moses.  According to Genesis 25:7 Abraham lived 175 years. That leaves only 300 years! One can surely see that 300 years is a short span of time for history to be passed along and others could have lived even longer. It is possible that Moses got the deluge story only second hand, although it's not documented.

There is archaeological evidence of the deluge in Bible lands. (See Haley's Bible Dictionary), However, so far there is little evidence if any that it was a worldwide event. Although science would rule out a worldwide event, God is plain in this case. All the hills under the heavens were flooded. It doesn't say all at one time, but that they all were. However, we can leave room that God may didn't explain what men at that time could not understand. He's done that several places in scripture.

Guess #6 is that it was a one-time miracle of God and that's that! Just as Jesus raised Lazurus from the dead, and that's impossible, God flooded the earth! Since God created it all, that too is plausible. However, in most Bible miracles of nature, God used nature for the miracle. Given that thought, my own "vote" is that God created the miracle in the known world. That agrees with the evidence and agrees with the vernacular used "all the high hills under the whole heavens", albeit "whole" at that time. A tsunami with rain would surely be sufficient to raise the water that high in the world populated at that time.

We need an example such that those dogmatic don't accuse me of apostasy! When did God "exaggerate" to make a point?

Mark 10:25 "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

This is an exaggeration. A camel could never go through the eye of a needle, at least without another miracle and we're not talking miracles here. I've heard every reasoning in the book about what Jesus (God) meant with this statement. He was obviously exaggerating to make a point. No, this is not lying any more than his parables and metaphors were lying. Jesus was merely saying that those who love money have a heavy, almost impossible burden. We know that God used "love of money" as the barrier to heaven, not riches itself!

Just to show how ignorant we are of God's mystery, no sooner than writing this (about Guess #5), I realized how wrong I am! It had to be the whole world. Dinosaurs were worldwide. They were destroyed. The flood was as good a theory as any. If only the known earth was flooded how did  the dinosaurs die? If only the Bible lands had been populated where did American dinosaurs get there?  It shows educated ignorance on my part! With that, it was a miracle of God which no one knows the manner!

In summary, the flood is another mystery of God. It's interesting to second guess God, but God doesn't want us to know everything! Just as he destroyed the Tower of Babel and scattered the people for seeking the heavens, he doesn't choose for us to know what he knows. His ways are his and we just don't need to know. That's called faith! 

If we seek proof or evidence, our hope of heaven is in vain, because by definition "hope" is in things unseen. Unseen things are not scientifically verifiable... just like the cause of the flood! God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He just wants our love, not our questions about his majesty!