The Genesis Flood

John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris

The great influence of Whitcomb & Morris's "The Genesis Flood" on current evangelical denominations is a source of great dismay to me - I saw it's launch when I was in graduate school in physics at Georgia Tech and reacted to it as nonsense. Clayton, Ronnie and I as PhD students in physics argued about it with Robert Gentry, and the three of us never thought it would amount to anything. We were, sadly, very wrong about that.

Now I have in my possession the 50th Anniversary Edition of the book, with enthusiastic endorsements from John MacArthur, Ken Ham and Andrew Snelling. It has a new Foreword about the history of the work and a new Preface to the 50th anniversary edition in 2011 by John C. Whitcomb at age 87.

See review by Greg Neyman of Answers in Creation

xxxv. Introduction

"If a worldwide flood actually destroyed the entire antediluvian human population, as well as all land animals, except those preserved in a special Ark constructed by Noah (as a plain reading of the Biblical record would lead one to believe), then its historical and scientific implications are tremendous." The simple "If a worldwide flood" phrase makes it appear that they consider themselves at least somewhat original in investigating and looking for evidence of such a worldwide flood, and carries the presupposition that the Biblical text referred to the whole globe when such a concept was thousands of years in the future from those who first did the "plain reading" of scripture. Incredible! It also betrays either a total ignorance or a choice to disregard the fact that a whole century of geologists, many of whom were Christians and even clergy, looked at the whole world for evidence of a global flood and at the end of the 1700s had concluded that there was no credible evidence of such a catastrophic, world-changing flood. This story is told well by Montgomery in his "The Rocks Don't Lie". Ross discusses the presumptions in Ch 3 of "A Matter of Days".

The other chilling thing about this introductory statement in retrospect is that their phrase "plain reading of the Biblical record" has become a mantra for those who take the young-earth position in the face of overwhelming evidence for antiquity, refusing to consider evidence contrary to their presupposed meaning of the Biblical text.

1. Basic Arguments for a Universal Flood

In arguing for a worldwide flood, the authors argue against Arthur Custance, who advocated a local flood.

The nature of their arguments against a local flood are

371 day flood not supportable from a local flood perspective
If nothing but mountain peaks seen after 74 days subsidence, then flood must be global
Breaking up of fountains of the deep implies global flood
Size of ark implies global flood
Testimony of Peter
Global destruction of human race implies global flood

2. Basic Arguments Against an Anthropologically Universal Flood

3. Basic Non-Geological Arguments Against a Universal Flood

4. Uniformitarianism and the Flood: A Study of Attempted Harmonizations

5. Modern Geology and the Deluge

6. A Scriptural Framework for Historical Geology

7. Problems in Biblical Geology

Appendix I: Paleontology and the Edenic Curse

Appendix II: Genesis 11 and the Date of the Flood

Windows of Creation

Evidence from nature

Is the universe designed?

Reading Reference

Reasonable Faith

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