The material here presented in book form was originally delivered in a series of lectures before District church conventions, pastors' Institutes, Laymen's seminars, teacher's meeting, and in Walther league camps in many parts of the United States and Canada. The audiences which heard these lectures differed greatly in character and education, and hence it was necessary to choose the popular lecture style to find a common ground where all minds could readily meet. The original lectures were revised considerably in preparation for publication, but the popular style has been retained.

Another point to be noted is that these lectures grew over a long period of time and were not originally prepared for publication. It was therefore not always possible, when the revision was made, to indicate at all times the sources that have been consulted, but the reader is referred to a lengthy bibliography at the end of this book. (Not included in this typing for internet use) All books and articles listed there have been helpful, and grateful acknowledgment is hereby made, also for the illustrations in the book.

The author has received aid and suggestions from many friends and a variety of sources. He wishes to acknowledge particularly his debt to Dr. George McCready Price, a noted geologist and author of many books on geology and Biblical subjects. Dr. Price is a brilliant champion of Biblical truths, and his searching analysis of the evolutionary theories of modern geology has been very helpful. The author also wishes to acknowledge with deep appreciation the interest shown by, and the encouragement received from, many friends who supplied him with valuable clippings and pictures of newly discovered fossils and other materials from all parts of the United States and Canada. He feels especially indebted to his wife, Bessie, nee Efner, M.D., whose interest, help, and encouragement have been constant.

The author's interest in the study of the Flood dates back to his college days, particularly to the time when he was a student of geology in the University of Alberta, under Dr. John Allan, a great teacher and one of Canada's foremost geologists. This interest was further stimulated when later he was called upon to teach a course in physical geography at Concordia College in Edmonton, Alberta. As a whole, this study has been a lifelong labor of love and a source of much genuine pleasure , because it opened up ever greater visions of God's most wonderful and omnipotent majesty manifested in the works of His creative and destructive powers. It is the author's desire to share this pleasure with many others who have not heard these lectures, by making them available in printed form. In offering this book to the reading public of the Church, he finds no better closing words for these introductory remarks than the beautiful prayer of the great Kepler, who prayed: "I thank Thee, my Creator and my Lord, that Thou hast given me this joy in Thy creation, this thrill in the works of Thy hand. I have made known Thy glory to men as far as my limited spirit can grasp Thine infinitude. If I have written something unworthy of Thee, forgive it in grace."

A. M. Rehwinkel Concordia Seminary, St Louis, Missouri

Contents

Preface .......................................................................NO PAGES IN HTML.....................................................

Introduction ....................................................................................................................  

PART ONE

The World Before the Flood

I. The physical World Before the Flood ...........................................................................

II. The Duration of the First World and its Population ......................................................

III. The Civilization of the Antediluvian World .................................................................  

PART TWO

The Biblical Account of the Flood

IV. Warning of the Coming Flood ...................................................................................  

V. Some Problems Concerning the Ark and Its Cargo ......................................................  

VI. Was the Ark Discovered? ..........................................................................................  

VII. The Beginning and the Duration of the Flood ............................................................  

VIII. Further Problems Connected with the Flood ................................................................  

PART THREE

Extra - Biblical Evidence for the Flood

IX. Flood Traditions Among the Nations of the World .........................................................  

X. The Babylonian Flood Account ....................................................................................  

XI. Other Historical Evidence for the Flood ......................................................................  

XII. Geological Evidence for a Universal Flood ................................................................  

XIII. Glacial and Fossil Lakes, Coal Beds, and Oil Deposits ..............................................  

XIV. Fossils in Every Part of the World Evidence for a Universal Flood ...........................  

XV. The Mammoth and the Flood ....................................................................................  

PART FOUR

The World After the Flood

XVI. Harmonizing Genesis and Geology. The Geological Timetable ..................................  

XVII. Other Difficulties Involving Genesis and Geology ......................................................  

XVII. The Glacial Theory and the Flood ...............................................................................  

XIX. The Flood the Most Reasonable Solution for the Glacial Theory Phenomena .............  

XX. The Flood a Prototype of the Final Judgment .............................................................  

NOTES ......................................................................................................................................  

INTRODUCTION:

Why a book on the Flood in the days of Noah? Why devote time and effort to an event which lies on the very threshold of an indistinct twilight of legend and myth and which is farther removed from the present than all the most ancient peoples and empires known to us from secular history? What benefit could there be in a study so hoary in age and so far removed from the thinking of people in the world today? There are four reasons why this study was made and why the results are here presented in book form.

Next to Creation, the Flood of Noah's time is the greatest event in the history of our earth. Nothing comparable with it has happened since nor will happen until the final destruction of this universe in the fire of Judgment Day. The Flood marks the end of a world of transcendent beauty, created by God as a perfect abode for man, and the beginning of a new world, a mere shadowy replica of its original glory. In all recorded history there is no other event except the Fall which has had such a revolutionary effect upon the topography and condition of this earth and which has so profoundly affected human history and every phase of life as it now exists in its manifold forms in the world. No geologist, biologist, or student of history can afford to ignore this great catastrophe.

The second reason for this study is the fact that the Flood occupies a most prominent place in our Bible. The sacred writer devotes more space to the history of the Flood than to the story of creation. About one third of the first eleven chapters of Genesis, which deal with the first two thousand years of the world's history, are devoted to the Flood. There are repeated references to the Flood in other books of the Old Testament. Jesus and the Apostles refer to it in the New Testament and hold it up as a warning example of God's wrath against sin as well as an example of His saving mercy. What Paul wrote concerning the Old Testament Scripture most certainly applies to this section, namely: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness"(2 Timothy 3:16) . We shall have ample opportunity to learn later that there is indeed much reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness in the Biblical account of the Flood.

Every student of the Bible and of geology knows there exists today a seemingly irreconcilable conflict between Genesis and geology. This conflict dates back about 125 years and had its origin in the rise of evolutionary geology. Up to that time, theologians and scientists were generally in agreement with the Biblical teachings concerning Creation and the Flood. But that is no longer the case. Today textbooks prescribed for courses in physical geography and geology in American high schools and colleges no longer teach a Biblical creation of the universe in six days of twenty-four hours each by a divine fiat. Some teachers, in fact, take delight in ridiculing the Biblical creation story and rule it out of modern thinking as naive, absurd, or as mere folklore of primitive people. Now and then there are still those who try to harmonize Genesis and the theories of geology by juggling language and extending the six days of creation into six periods of unlimited time, each measured by millions, or possibly billions, of years. Still others preserve an outward reverence for the Bible and speak of Genesis patronizingly as a beautiful but poetical conception of the origin of things.

The shock received by the inexperienced young student is therefore overwhelming when he enters the classroom of such teachers and suddenly discovers to his great bewilderment that these men and women of acclaimed learning do not believe the views taught him in his early childhood days; and since the student sits at their feet day after day, it usually does not require a great deal of time until the foundation of his faith begins to crumble as stone upon stone is being removed from it by these unbelieving teachers. Only too often the results are disastrous. The young Christian becomes disturbed, confused, and bewildered. Social pressure and the weight of authority add to his difficulties. First he begins to doubt the infallibility of the Bible in matters of geology, but he will not stop there. Other difficulties arise, and before long skepticism and unbelief have taken the place of his childhood faith, and the saddest of all tragedies has happened. Once more a pious Christian youth has gained a glittering world of pseudo learning but has lost his own immortal soul.

To help these students and others like them over this difficult and dangerous period is the chief reason for this study and its publication. A careful study of the Biblical account of the Flood will prove that this fearful world catastrophe offers the most reasonable solution for most or all of the difficulties which confront the student of historical geology and which tend to disturb his faith in the truth and reliability of the Bible.

For the encouragement of young Christians who are overawed by the show of great learning of unbelieving professors it ought to be said that there always have been and still are very eminent scientists and men of great learning who retain their faith in the Bible as God's own infallible revelation to man. Everyone knows that men like Kepler, Newton, Faraday, and others of like stature were humble Christians and believers in the Bible. Great geologists of the last century, like Hugh Miller, Pye Smith, Murcheson, Sir William Dawson, and others, remained faithful believers and defenders of the Bible. Dr. Samuel Johnson, who was well known for his profound classical scholarship, was a humble and pious man and took the Bible for his guide throughout life and leaned entirely upon its promises for comfort in the hour of death.

At a meeting of the British Association of Scientists held in 1865 a manifesto was drawn up and signed by 617 men of science, many of whom were of the highest eminence, in which they declared their belief not only in the truth and authenticity of the Holy Scriptures, but also in the harmony of scripture with natural science. A copy of this manifesto was deposited in the Bodleian Library of Oxford. The text of this manifesto is very interesting. It reads as follows:

We, the undersigned students of the Natural Sciences, desire to express our sincere regret that researches into scientific truth are perverted by some in our own times into occasions for casting doubt upon the truth and authenticity of the Holy Scriptures.

We conceive that it is impossible for the Word of God as written in the book of Nature, and God's Word written in Holy Scripture to contradict one another, however much they may appear to differ.

We are not forgetful that physical science is not complete, but is only in a condition of progress, and that at present our finite reason enables us only to see as through a glass darkly, and we confidently believe that a time will come when the two records will be seen to agree in every particular.

We cannot but deplore that Natural Science should be looked upon with suspicion by many who do not make a study of it, merely on account of the unadvised manner in which some are placing it in opposition to Holy Writ..

We believe that it is the duty of every scientific student to investigate Nature simply for the purpose of elucidating truth, and that if he finds that some of his results appear to be in contradiction to the written Word, or rather to his own interpretation of it, which may be erroneous, he should not presumptiously affirm that his own conclusions must be right, and the statements of Scriptures wrong.

Rather leave the two side by side until it shall please God to allow us to see the manner in which they may be reconciled; and instead of insisting upon the seeming differences between Science and the Scriptures, it would be as well to rest in faith upon the points in which they agree.

Great men of science are humble men because they best know the frailties and limitations of finite men. It is the small man, the second-rate scholar and scientist, who struts in arrogant conceit, who parades his learning to impress the uninitiated, who is intolerant and dogmatic in his pronouncements. These are well characterized by Quintilian, a Roman teacher of oratory at the time of Paul, who says: "The less ability man has, the more he tries to sell himself out as those of short stature exalt themselves on tiptoes, and the weak use most threats."

The final reason for a study of the Flood is to remind the Christian reader that the Flood was a prototype of the Final Judgment, which will make a sudden and fearful end of the second world. The Lord says: "As the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days that were before the Flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the Flood came and took them all away, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be." (Matthew 24:37-39) As the first world perished by water; so this present world shall be destroyed by fire. (2 Peter 3:3 ff) And as this second world emerged from the Flood stripped of its original glory, so shall emerge from the fire of Judgment a new heaven and a new earth cleansed of sin and all evil, of misery, war, and death, and restored to a perfection which shall transcend even its original glory. (2 Peter 3:13 ff.)

A study of the Flood will prove to be extremely fascinating and rich in instruction, both spiritual and secular, for in this awful catastrophe we behold our God in His wonderful and fearful majesty as He deals in His anger and mercy with the children of men. And as we now undertake this study, we must always remain mindful of the fact that we are dealing here with a great miracle of God, though the natural forces already in the universe were employed to bring it about, and miracles, in their very nature, are supernatural acts of God and therefore contrary to the established laws of nature and incapable of explanation and complete understanding by finite man. Hence we must expect that many problems connected with the Flood will remain unsolved mysteries. The general plan of the study aims to develop the following broad outline:

I. The World Before the Flood II. The Biblical Account of the Flood

III. Extra-Biblical Evidence for the Flood IV. The World After the Flood

PART ONE

The world before the Flood

CHAPTER 1

The Physical World Before the Flood

The recorded information we have concerning the physical condition of the world before the Flood is very meager. The only direct Biblical reference is found in Genesis 1;31, where we read: "And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good." When God had finished creating, He inspected, as it were, the works of His hand, and He was delighted with the things that He had made and pronounced them very good. What God pronounces good, that is good in the absolute. God had created a perfect abode for man, the crown of His creation. It was perfect and complete in every detail. There were no thorns and thistles in that world. The earth brought forth abundantly of everything that was needful to provide for the wants, comforts, and pleasures of man. There was no need of a struggle for an existence either between man and man or between the beasts and their companions. There were no Saharas, no barren wastes, no bleak and sterile hills, no rigors of the arctic and no disease-breeding heat of the tropics. The most enchanting islands in the subtropical area of the South Seas today are but an imperfect replica of what that world was which received the verdict "very good" from its Creator.

It is true, after God had spoken these words, sin came into the world and with sin the blight and the curse of sin. And the curse which God had pronounced became effective at once, but its consequences were not immediately apparent to their fullest extent.

It was here as it was with men. God had aid: "The day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," and when man ate, death was upon him and in him, but man did not die immediately. That body created unto immortality defied death for nearly a thousand years. He lived as though he would never die. And as with men, so it was with the rest of creation. Though the blight of sin was upon it, its original glory did not depart at once, and the "groaning and travailing in pain" of which Paul speaks (Romans 8:22) was not yet as audible as it is now.

Even after sin and death had come into this world, it was still a world vastly superior to the world which now is. It was, as Luther says, "a veritable paradise compared with the world that followed."

In the first place, it was a world with more "living space" for the human race than the present world offers. The world of Adam and his immediate descendants contained proportionately more habitable land than the world of today. There were no enormous waste areas, such as the great deserts of Africa, Asia, America, and Australia. Nor were the land masses separated by such vast expanses of ocean water, which today constitute about seven tenths of the earth' surface.

The earth's surface is approximately 197,000,000 square miles. Of this 139,000,000 square miles of the world today is sea, leaving 58,000,000 square miles of land, or only a little more than one fourth of the globe which is not covered with water. But not even all of this one fourth of the earth's surface is suitable for human habitation. The regions of the earth which are capable of supporting an average population by virtue of fertility of land, the abundance of natural resources, and favorable climate are distinctly limited. Large areas are closed to extensive human habitation because of climatic and other conditions.

The greatest hindrance to extensive settlement in the world since the Flood are the vast desert and mountain belts which completely divide the great continents into fertile and wasteland areas. Beginning with the Sahara, the latter areas continue through the deserts of Arabia and Iran to the enormous barren plateaus of Tibet and Mongolia, ending finally with the mountain wilderness of Lower Siberia. In North America a mountain belt extending from Alaska down through the entire length of the continent to the southern most peak is likewise sparsely settled and offers living space only to comparatively few.

To these forbidding sections of our earth today must also be added the northern tundras of Canada and Siberia and the ice covered continents of Greenland and Antarctica, the Australian desert, which comprises over half of that continent, and the lofty mountain regions of northern India and western South America.

All told, the regions of the world unsuitable for human habitation comprise about 40 percent of its land surface. To this must be added the tropical forest lands as found in the valleys of the Amazon, the Congo, and on the equatorial islands of southeastern Asia. These regions add up to another 10 per cent or more. The actual land areas therefore suitable for habitation comprise less than one half of the land surfaces of the earth.

But this is not all. The earth after the Flood was not only reduced considerably in land area, but even in this shrunken earth the fertility of the soil and the natural resources necessary for human progress are no unequally distributed, so that the people in some areas live in plenty while others eke out a miserable existence, thus giving rise to jealousies, rivalries, and bloody wars between the nations. But the world before the Flood was not so.

The general contour of the antediluvian Europe was not the same as that of modern Europe. The great Sir William Dawson describes the Europe of a previous world as compared with the present as follows: "In Europe the British Isles were connected with the mainland, and Ireland was united with England. The Rhine flowed northward to the Orkneys through a wide plain, probably wooded and swarming with great quadrupeds, now extinct or strange to Europe. The Thames and the Humber were tributaries of the Rhine. The land of France and Spain extended out to the one hundredth fathom line. The shallower parts of the Mediterranean were dry land, and that sea was divided into two parts by a land connecting Italy with Africa. Possibly, a portion of the shallower areas of the Atlantic were so elevated to connect Europe and America more closely than at present."

Fossils of plants and man-made implements found in the Sahara show that this great African desert was at one time covered with luxuriant vegetation and was inhabited by man. Similar remains have been found in the Gobi Desert of China and in the great desert areas of northwestern India.

Australia and Tasmania constituted one continent, while the north and south islands of New Zealand together formed one unbroken body of land.

The Arctic and the Antarctic regions of the two poles and Greenland were not always covered with mountains of ice and snow, but were habitable for both animals and man. Wallace speaks of a "rich warm temperate flora once covering what are now the icy wastes of Greenland and Spitzbergen." The broken-up character of the coast of Ireland and Newfoundland, Labrador, Greenland, and Iceland with the extensive bank of the Azores, all point to a certain amount of recent sinking land on the outskirts of this area of great depression.

The flora and fauna found in the northern part of South America and in the southern part of the United States indicate that there was another land bridge between these two continents besides the present narrow neck of Central America. This other link connected the two continents from Florida southward by way of the islands of the Caribbean.

The sea at Bering Strait is so shallow that we may safely conclude that the continents of Asia and America were once connected, while the shallow Okhotsk, Jampan, and Yellow seas indicate a large extension of lowlands of eastern Asia.

The eastern coast of North America extended much farther eastward into the Atlantic, possibly connecting with Europe in the north and by way of the mythical continent called Atlantis in the south.

The ancients had a legend concerning a vanished continent in the Atlantic Ocean which, according to tradition, had existed somewhere in the great sea west of the "pillars of Hercules." It was the dwelling place of the gods and a great race of people, but was suddenly and mysteriously swallowed by the ocean as a result of an earthquake. Plato tells us that Solon was the first of the Greeks to hear of this mysterious island-continent and its wonders while visiting in Egypt, where the wise men of Sais told him of its existence. Solon intended to write its history but found that he was too far advanced in years to undertake such a task. Two hundred years later, Plato decided to do what Solon had left undone. Plato's history of Atlantis is found in the unfinished dialog known as Critias. Soundings in the Atlantic Ocean between southern Europe and America have revealed the possibility of the existence of a prehistoric continent in that area which served as a bridge between Europe, Africa, and America.

Today great mountain ranges divide the continents and smaller land masses into clearly defined climatic and biological zones. Think of the Rocky Mountains in North America, the Andes in South America, or the Himalayas in Asia, and the tremendous effect these rocky walls have had on the climate in the respective continents where they are found. But this was not always so. The mountain ranges in the world of Adam were not the same high, forbidding walls as found in the world of today, but were much lower, covered with vegetation, and did not seriously interfere with the climatic conditions as do the mountains of today. The English scientist Alfred Wallace, speaking about a world that has disappeared, writes: "The Alps, the Pyrenees, the Rocky Mountains, and even the Himalayas were all in early Miocene times many thousands feet lower than they are now.This is proved by the fact of Eocene and Miocene marine deposits of great thickness, which must have been formed in rather deep water, being found elevated from ten to sixteen thousand feet above the sea level. As an example, we may mention the Dent du Midi in Switzerland, where marine shells of early Miocene or late Eocene type are found at an elevation of 10,940 feet; and as this mountain must have suffered enormous denudation, these figures can only represent a portion of the rise of the land, most of which occurred during the Miocene period."

Nor is it mere speculation to speak of the first world as a "veritable paradise." For though there are but meager written records concerning this first world, there is another kind of record which God has preserved for us in His wisdom. This record is reliable and true and is written in large and legible letters in the very foundation rocks of our present world. The record I refer to are the fossil remains that have been found in great abundance in every part of the globe. These fossils may be called the mummified remains of an extinct world. Fossils do not lie. Just as the pyramids of Egypt and the monuments of Greece and Rome are an evidence of the greatness of the civilization that produced them, so these fossils speak an eloquent language of the glories of a world which has passed away. These fossils have been preserved by God for a purpose. They are, as it were, the inscription on a tombstone erected to that magnificent world and at the same time a warning to the world which was to follow. The fossils have stimulated the imagination of men ever since the early Greeks. The early church fathers were familiar with them. Tertullian mentions them and gives a fairly correct interpretation of them. Luther also knew of them and understood their meaning. Others since then have had very fantastic ideas about them, but to us their language is clear. A more detailed discussion of these fossils will follow in a later chapter. Here I merely wish to refer to them as evidence and conclusive proof that the physical condition of the world of Noah, the climate, animals, and plant life, was vastly different from that of our world today.

With respect to climate, the fossils show that there was a uniformly mild climate in high and in low altitudes of both the northern and the southern hemisphere. That is, there was a perfectly uniform, non-zonal, mild, and springlike climate in every part of the globe. This does not mean that the climate was of necessity the same in all parts of the earth. There were differences, but not the present extremes. Sir Henry H. Howorth, a noted geologist and competent interpreter of these fossils, says: "The flora and fauna are virtually the only thermometer with which we can test the climate of any past period. Other evidence is always sophisticate by the fact that we may be attributing to climate what is due to other causes. But the biological evidence is unmistakable; cold-blooded reptiles cannot live in icy water; semitropical plants, or plants whose habitat is the temperate zone, cannot ripen their seeds and sow themselves under arctic conditions."

Or another outstanding authority, Prof. Alfred R. Wallace, says: "There is but one climate known to the ancient fossil world as revealed by the plants and animals entombed in the rocks, and the climate was a mantle of springlike loveliness which seems to have prevailed continuously over the whole globe. Just how the world could have thus been warmed all over may be a matter of conjecture; that it was so warmed effectively and continuously is a matter of fact."

F. H. Knowlton, in speaking about the climate which prevailed in the region of Yellowstone National Park during the so-called Tertiary period, writes: "A final word may be added regarding the probable climate of the region during the lifetime of these fossil forests. It is obvious that the present flora of the Yellowstone National Park has comparatively little relation to the Tertiary flora and cannot be considered a descendant of it. It is also clear that climatic conditions must have greatly changed since Tertiary times. The Tertiary flora appears to have come from the south, but the present flora is evidently of a more northern origin. The climate during the Tertiary times as indicated by the vegetation was temperate or warm. Temperate, not unlike that of Virginia or the Carolinas of the present time, and the presence of numerous species of figs, a supposed breadfruit tree, cinnamons, and other southern plants indicates that it may have been almost subtropical. However, the conditions that were favorable to this seemingly subtropical growth may have been different from the conditions now necessary for the growth of similar vegetation.... It is certain, however, that the conditions were very different from those now prevailing in this part."

Or Prof. Georg McCready Price writes: "It would be quite useless to go through the whole fossiliferous series in order, for there is not a single system which does not have coral limestone or other evidence of a mild climate way up north, most systems having such rock in the lands which skirt the very pole itself. The limestone and coal beds of the carboniferous period are the nearest known rocks to the North Pole. They crop out all around the polar basis; and from the dip of these beds, they must underlie the polar sea itself. But it is needless to go through the systems one after another for they are 'uniformly testify that a warm climate has in former times prevailed over the whole globe.' "

It is difficult for us today even to imagine a world as just described, a world in which there was neither arctic nor antarctic and no steaming jungles of the Equator. We know that our present climatic zones and seasons are the results of the changing relations of the earth to the sun, the source of the heat that warms our globe. It is, therefore, quite natural to ask at this point: How could these laws of nature have functioned in that world so as to produce conditions so different from those prevailing today, and what caused the change?

That our earth at one time in its history enjoyed a uniformly mild climate in all of its parts is a fact which can be demonstrated, as we have seen, and that a change came suddenly, in fact, very suddenly, and probably at a time of a universal flood, seems to be established beyond a doubt from the frozen mammoths found fully preserved in the flesh in the frozen tundras of northern Siberia, of which we shall hear more later. But what caused the change is not definitely known. All we can do is guess at an answer and project possible theories as to the most reasonable solution for these difficulties.

Three theories have been suggested. The first is that the earth has tilted 23½ degrees at the time of the Flood, bringing about a change in the relation of the earth to the sun and thus creating the climatic zones as they now exist.
If the earth's axis were perpendicular to the plane of itsorbit, the sunlight would always extend from pose to pole, and days and nights would always be of equal length, that is, twelve hours each, and every portion of the earth's surface in the same latitude would continually receive the same amount of heat and light. In that case there would be no change of season, as is shown in the two diagram above left.

But the axis of the earth is not perpendicular to the plane of its orbit. It inclines at about 23.5 degrees. In figures A and B are shown the two portions of the earth in its orbit. (On left) In figure A the north pole on December 21 is turned away from the sun, and consequently the sun's rays fall short of it by 23.5 degrees. At the same time they shine upon the South Pole as shown in figure B by a like amount. By June 21 the condition is completely reversed, and the rays of the sun reach the North Pole, while they fall short of the south Pole.

The tilted position of the earth therefore accounts for the arctic and antarctic regions of the two poles and for the seasons of the year. According to this theory the tilting of the axis of the earth to the amount of 23.5 degrees occurred at the time of the Flood, thereby causing a change in the climate and creating the present climatic zones, but also bringing about those violent cosmic revolutions on the earth which affected the entire universe and which resulted in the Flood.

According to a second theory the uniform climate of the first world was brought about by the warm ocean waters which surrounded the antediluvian continents. It is believed that the land and water segments were more equally distributed so that no portions of the existing continents were as far removed from the ocean as they are now. It is quite conceivable that a universal ocean of warm water could very well cause a uniformly mild climate in every part of the globe, but that alone could not account for the luxuriant vegetation which flourished during this period in the ancient polar regions, if the antediluvian poles like today were shrouded in darkness for six months of each year.  

Another version of this same theory holds that warm ocean currents were so distributed that every portion of the existing land masses was touched and warmed by them., similar to the conditions of those parts of the world today that are affected by the Gulf Stream and the Japan Current.

Everyone is familiar with this strange phenomenon of ocean currents, that is, those remarkable rivers of warm water flowing in a sea of cold water and keeping a definite and permanent course for thousands of miles. The Gulf Stream, which derives its name from the Gulf of Mexico, where it seems to originate, is the best known and the most remarkable of these ocean currents. It is a stream much larger than either the Mississippi or the Amazon. It is fifty miles wide at the Strait of Florida and has an average depth of about 1,500 feet. This stream is more than 4,000 miles long, its rate of flow varying from about three to five miles an hour. The temperature of its water is warmer than the ocean at the Equator, but cools slightly as it travels northward. This Gulf Stream, with the prevailing westerly winds, is responsible for the mild climate of England and northwestern Europe and affects the climate even as far north as Spitzbergen. In southern England, which lies in about the same latitude as Edmonton, Alberta, the winters are very mild, with very little ice and snow, so that vegetables like cabbage can be left in the gardens all winter, while the mercury in Edmonton at the same time might dip to fifty and occasionally even to sixty degrees below zero.

If similar currents touched all of the antediluvian continents and affected them as the Gulf Stream affects northwestern Europe and the Japan Current Alaska and British Columbia today, then it is quite conceivable that this might well account for a uniformly mild climate throughout the ancient world. But this, too, would not offer a satisfactory explanation for the rich vegetation in the polar regions.

The third theory attempting to explain the antediluvian climate is the so-called canopy theory. According to this theory the earth was originally surrounded by a canopy of vapor which intercepted the direct rays of the sun. The heat which penetrated the canopy was diffused so equally over all the zones of latitude that the subtropical climate prevailed even in the high latitude. This canopy served to bring about conditions similar to those in a hothouse with a temperature of about 72F. The chemical rays of the sun, especially those most active in the aging of living things and those that bringabout decay and fermentation, were intercepted by the canopy, and as a result, men and animals lived to great ages.

Storms and rain were unknown in the world of Adam, and hence the rainbow was first seen on the day that Noah left the ark. Extremes of cold and heat were not possible. In the Flood all this changed. The canopy collapsed and was the chief source of the floodwaters. The immediate effect of the removal of the canopy was a radical climatic change. Now the seasons became sharply divided, and there was from now on "

These are the three theories that have been proposed to offer a possible solution for the wonderful climatic conditions that prevailed in the world before the Flood. It is impossible, of course, to know which if any, of these theories correctly describes the conditions. The most reasonable view would seem to be to assume that all three, or at least the first two, might have applied, that is, to assume that the earth was tilted at the time of the flood out of its original position, thus changing the relation of th earth to the sun and creating the two polar regions, and that the temperature of the first world had been equalized by the warm ocean water or warm ocean currents. But something might even be said in favor of the canopy theory. At any rate Gen. 2:5 and Gen. 9:13 become more meaningful within the framework of this theory.

With such favorable climatic conditions prevailing everywhere, it requires no great flights of the imagination to perceive that the flora and the fauna of that world would be in harmony with their physical surroundings, and therefore far superior to the flora and fauna of the world today. And so it was, for this, too, is borne out by the records in the rocks. Beginning with the animals, we find that the fossils reveal:

1) a greater distribution of the various genera and species in all parts of the earth;

2) a far greater variety of genera and species than have existed in the world since then; and

3) a distinct deterioration of the animals which have survived when compared with their antediluvian ancestors.

It is not within the scope of this study to treat and of these questions in great detail. A few examples must suffice. Everybody today has read about or seen the pictures of the dragon like prehistoric reptiles known as the Sauria. Their fossils are found in every continent, sometimes in great numbers. The dinosaurs of the Red Deer Valley in Alberta must have lived and died there by the thousands, so thickly are their skeletons scattered over the adjoining region known as the "Bad Lands." Some writers on the subject hold that they must have been as numerous as the hardy buffalo of a generation ago, but with much more variety and form of species. In point of size they ranged from the size of a small dog to monsters of over eighty feet in length. In point of diversity they represent almost a world of their own. In Alberta alone twenty-six different species have been identified. There were those that lived on land, others in water, and still others in the air.

The sea that in ages past covered the regions which now constitute our own western Kansas was the headquarters of a species known as Monassaurs, and thousands of specimens have been taken from the chalk bluffs of this State, some of them in such a fine state of preservation that we are not only well acquainted with their internal structure, but with their outward appearance as well. Another species of marine reptile found in Kansas measured nearly fifty feet in length. Of the flying reptiles, one has been found with a head a yard long and with a stretch of wings of over twenty feet. Another of these prediluvian monsters was a reptile which modern paleontologists have very fittingly called Tyrannosaurus, that is, the tyrant lizard, for he was absolutely the most formidable creature that stalked the earth. A monster when standing erect, he measured eighteen feet high, with claws like an eagle's, and provided with double-edged, daggerlike teeth, two and three inches long, set in a mouth with a yard-wide gap. Brontosaurus was probably the largest of them all, in fact, we know, the largest creature that ever walked on this earth. A specimen of this prehistoric giant is found in the American Museum in New York and measures sixty-six feet, eight inches in length, and it is estimated that, when living, this animal must have weighed at least thirty-eight tons. One even larger than the New York specimen was reported found in South America, which was said to have measured 150 feet in Length. Similar discoveries have been made in Russia, in different parts of the United States, Africa, and elsewhere. Only the whale in the world today compares in size with these ancient land animals.

Associated with these reptiles here in America and Europe were other animals, now either extinct or found only in tropical climate, such as the elephant, lion, tiger, tapir, the camel, and others. In the frozen north of Siberia and Alaska the mammoth once roamed in immense herds, while walruses, rhinoceroses, and similar animals had their habitat within the present territory of the United States.

"The bird kingdom, to, was far greater than now. Bones of a bird have been found which indicate that this species must have stood at least ten feet high, or two feet higher than the largest ostrich."

Fossil snail shells have been found measuring nearly a foot in diameter; other shells related to the pearly nautilus measured over a yard across; and straight-shelled cephalopods with shells more than a foot in diameter and fifteen feet long have been discovered.

Everyone is familiar with the modern lobster; when a specimen is found to measure a foot or more in size it is regarded as an exceptional curiosity. But fossil crustaceans belonging to that family have been known to measure at least six feet in size. The same is true of the insects. Some of the ancient locusts have a spread of wing of more than seven inches, while some of the dragon flies had bodies nearly a foot and a half long and wings spreading over two feet from tip to tip. Monstrous amphibians belonging to the frog family were discovered, measuring six and even ten feet with heads twenty inches long.

In 1921 the fossil remains of a prehistoric bat were found near Entwistle, Alberta, which, when living, must have had the size of an average sheep, with a head like a crocodile and with a spread of wings measuring fifteen feet. The greatest zoological gardens with their animals gathered from all the continents are poor affairs as compared with the native dwellers that once inhabited our North American continent. And what is true of North America is true of every other continent.

Professor Wallace is, therefore, quite right when he says:"It is quite clear, therefore, that we live in a zoologically impoverished world, from which all the hugest and fiercest and strangest forms have disappeared."

What is true of the animals also applies to the plant kingdom of that strange world. Here, too the rocks reveal wonders upon wonders. Not only was there a greater variety of plants, but the species still in existence were much larger and more widely distributed over the face of the earth; and there was an abundance and luxuriance of plant life in every part of the earth of which we today no longer are able to form an adequate conception. A few examples must suffice: Trees such as the oak, beech, myrtle, laurel, walnut, palms, banana trees, magnolias, breadfruit, grape vines, sequoias like those of modern California, and others like them were not only found in the western states as Wyoming, montana, and western Canada, but also in Alaska, Greenland, and up to the very polar regions The abundance and the great varieties of plant life found in Arctic Siberia have even suggested to some that the Garden of Eden might have been in that region.

An irrefutable proof for the unparalleled luxuriance of plant life in that prehistoric world are the great coal beds found in every continent of the earth today. The recent Byrd Antarctic Expedition discovered a whole mountain of coal at the south Pole. These coal beds were God's wonderful way of preserving for future generations the magnificent trees and the plants which covered the face of the earth as this had come forth from the hands of the Creator. It has been estimated that it requires from ten to fourteen feet of vegetable matter to produce a seam of coal one foot in thickness. There are seams of coal ranging from forty to fifty feet in thickness. In a strip mine in Wyoming a seam measuring from sixty to ninety feet in thickness has been discovered. This means that a solid mass of vegetation, trees, and other plants from five hundred to a thousand feet in thickness was required to make possible the creation of coal seams of such magnitude.

What a marvelous world this must have been! Our imagination is inadequate to reconstruct for ourselves a picture of the world which God had given as a possession to Adam and his descendants.

May this suffice on the subject of the physical world before the Flood. Much more could be said. What has been said is sufficient to show that the world of Adam, Methuselah, of Enoch and Noah, was a wondrous world. A world rich in plant and animal life. A world which yielded food of every kind for man and beast without any great effort on the part of either, a world which could therefore support a population many times greater than our present population. A world which was made delightful by a uniform climate of springlike loveliness like that of Paradise itself. In short, the whole world was a garden of God, or as Luther said, "a veritable paradise," compared with the world which followed. This was the golden age in the history of the earth. It was a creation of God's love, created for the enjoyment of him who was created in His own image and made to rule over it and possess it. And yet this world was destroyed by the Flood. God Himself destroyed it. In Jonah 4:10-11 we read: "Then said the Lord, Thou has had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not labored, neither madest it to grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. And would not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand person that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle?" And Jeremiah laments over the desolated city of Jerusalem: "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me?" (Lam. 1:12)

And on entering Jerusalem and beholding the city and its future destruction, Jesus wept because she had not known what belonged to her peace. God grieved over Nineveh, He lamented and wept over Jerusalem, but what were Jerusalem and Nineveh in all their glory compared with that world which perished in the Flood!

Our God is a God of love, of tender mercies and Longsuffering to them that fear and love Him and do according to His commandments; but He is a terrible Judge to those that reject His mercy. If He spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down into hell, and if He spared not this magnificent world of His original creation, how will the ungodly and the wicked of today escape His wrath when the Day of Judgment shall dawn upon this second world?

CHAPTER II

The Duration of the First World and Its Population

The story of the Flood is told in Chapters Six to Nine in the first book of the Bible. The story of the fall of man is found in Chapter three. Between these two events are only two chapters, and both of these are largely devoted to genealogical tables. In our school Bible histories and Sunday school literature the account of the fall of man is usually followed by the story of Cain and Abel, and that again by the story of the Flood. As a result, children as well as adults are often found to have formed an erroneous conception concerning the duration of the first world. We usually think of that period as having been much shorter than it really was. It must be remembered, however, that the duration of the first world covered a long period of time, a period much longer than any kingdom or empire in ancient or modern times had ever flourished. We have an exact chronology of this age in Genesis 5, and that chronology is confirmed by the genealogical table found in Chronicles 1 and Luke 3. According to this chronology the Flood occurred in the year 1656 after Creation.

But to say that the first world stood for 1,656 years does not mean a great deal unless we try to visualize the length of this period by translating it into our own time. If we turn back the pages of modern history to the number of 1,656 years, we shall find ourselves in the midst of Roman history, about the time when Diocletian was ruler of that great empire and when the Roman amphitheaters and arenas were still re-echoing with the mad shouts of the spectators witnessing the gruesome slaughter of persecuted Christians. Much of the ancient, all of the medieval, and all of modern history has occurred since that time.
Such events as the Barbarian invasion, the fall of Rome, the rise of the Papacy, the establishment of the European nations, the founding and spreading of Mohammedanism, the discovery of America and Australia, the Protestant Reformation, the French Revolution, and countless wars, the invention of gunpowder, of the printing press, the steam engine and electricity, and a thousand other events which have influenced the course of history and made this modern world, have happened in the last 1,656 years. A new world, distinct from the ancient world, developed since then, and a population which numbered at most a few hundred million has grown to the enormous number of over two billion. Sixteen hundred and fifty-six years is a long time in human history. It was a long time in the first world. It was long enough for the human race to increase and expand and take possession of the earth as God had commanded.

The common view is that the population before the Flood was quite small and that its geographical distribution was limited to a comparatively small area. Or, as one learned author says: "It would be highly unreasonable to suppose that mankind had so increased before the deluge as to have penetrated to all the corners of the earth. It is indeed not probable that they had extended themselves beyond the limits of Syria and Mesopotamia."

And yet, even in our age, 1,656 years is sufficient for the human race to grow to an enormous population. To this must be added that conditions then were much more favorable for propagation than in the present world. Original man was endowed with far greater vitality of body and mind than now. This can be inferred from the great age to which he lived. And from this it would also necessarily follow that the antediluvians were far more prolific than man is in his present state. Add to this the climatic conditions, the fact that food supplies were far more plentiful and accessible for all, that a world of virgin soil and unlimited riches beckoned man to take possession, and you have the most ideal conditions for the rapid growth of population.

In modern times the world has witnessed a phenomenal growth in population. During the century between 1830 and 1930 the population of the world doubled in number, that is, it increased by about 850 million within one century. Students of population ascribe this extraordinary growth to the application of steam, to transportation and industry, and to the opening up of new virgin territory in America, Australia, Africa and elsewhere. Or, in other words, the fact that new facilities were created by which the necessities of life could be provided in greater abundance and with more ease had as a result this unparalleled increase in population.

But as already stated, conditions in the antediluvian world were far more favorable than they ever can be in the world of today, and hence it is not unreasonable to assume that the population grew more rapidly than is possible today.

Just what the population of the world of Noah might have been is, of course entirely a matter of conjecture. But even a most conservative speculation will reveal extremely interesting possibilities.

Our life now lasts three score years and ten, and only by virtue of strength, fourscore years, as Moses says. Only during about thirty or thirty-five years of this period, man, or more specifically, woman, is capable of reproduction. And yet in spite of this limited period of life and still more limited period of reproduction, families of eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, or even more are not uncommon, at least, were not uncommon a generation or more ago. They are still quite common among the French-Canadians in Quebec, the Mexicans in our southwestern border States, and among the hill folk of our Southern mountains regions. Even families of fifteen or sixteen occur occasionally. Benjamin Franklin was the fifteenth child in a family of seventeen, and John Wesley was one in a family on nineteen children. Recently I met a man on Mount Petit Jean, Arkansas, who was at that time eighty-seven years old. He had twelve children, sixty-one grandchildren, seventy-four great-grand children, and five great-great-grandchildren, making a total of 172 descendants in the lifetime of one man, and that today in Arkansas under conditions which are far from representing antediluvian abundance. In Clarinda, Iowa, I had the privilege of speaking to a mother of twenty living children. She was at th time (1944) still quite youthful in appearance, very active in the community, and a member of the local church choir.

The Idaho Daily State of September 28, 1946, reported that Mrs. Mary Jones, a Negro sixty-five years old, gave birth to her twenty-seventh child, a baby girl, at the University Hospital of Columbus, Ohio. Twenty-one of her children are living. Her husband is sixty years old.

Now, if man with a vitality much lower, and his age limit reduced to a mere fraction of that of the Antediluvian, can reproduce his kind to the extent of ten to fourteen and more to one family, it is certainly reasonable to assume that the human race in the primeval world was capable of reproducing, and did reproduce, at a much higher rate than is possible today. If the period of reproduction in the life of a woman is nearly equal to one half of her total possible age today, it is again reasonable to assume that the same was true of the antediluvian mother. From Genesis 5 we know that men lived to an age of eight or nine hundred years and more in the first world. This would mean that the reproduction period continued over a period of at least from four hundred to five hundred years. And that this is not an unwarranted or an absurd conclusion can be established from the same fifth chapter, for in verse fifteen we read of Mahalaleel that he begat a son at the age of sixty-five, and in verse twenty-one, Enoch begat Methuselah at the age of sixty-five, and, again, in verse thirty-two we read that Noah was five hundred years old when he begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Here is a period of more than four hundred years during which the generation of that age was able to beget children. And, again, because of the greater antediluvian vitality and vigor, and because of the abundance of food supplies, infant mortality must have been much lower than in any succeeding age of human history. Tradition also has it that families of that age were very large. In Josephus we find such a tradition according to which Adam had fifty-six children, thirty-three sons and twenty-three daughters. The history of Cain also presupposes a population quite numerous, for he says to God: "everyone that findeth me shall slay me." Cain would not have spoken that way if the whole human race at that time had consisted of the members of a modern family. And again we read that Cain went into the land of Nod and there built a city. A family consisting of a dozen or more children would not build a city for itself.

On the basis of what has been said, it would not be unreasonable to assume that an average family in that age might have consisted of at least eighteen to twenty living and marriageable children. All will agree that on the basis of what has been said, this is a very conservative estimate. According to Genesis 5 there were ten generations from Adam to Noah. Taking these figures as a basis for a calculation, we obtain the following results:

First generation ...................................................... 2

Second generation .................................................. 18

Third generation ..................................................... 162

Fourth generation ................................................... 1,458

Fifth generation ...................................................... 13.122

Sixth generation ..................................................... 118,098

Seventh generation ..................................................1,062,882

Eighth generation .................................................... 9,565,938

Ninth generation ..................................................... 86,093,442

Tenth generation ..................................................... 774,840,979

To this number must be added all surviving previous generations, which would probably number an additional hundred million. According to this calculation, the population at the time of the Flood would have been nearly nine hundred million, or about equal to the population of the world just a hundred years ago. If we assume that the average family numbered 20 children, and retain the ten generations of Genesis 5, we get the following figures:

First generation ............................................................. 2

Second generation ......................................................... 20

Third generation ............................................................ 200

Fourth generation ........................................................... 2000

Fifth generation .............................................................. 20,000

Sixth generation ............................................................. 200,00

Seventh generation ......................................................... 2,000,000

Eighth generation ........................................................... 20,000,000

Ninth generation ............................................................. 200,000,000

Tenth generation ............................................................. 2,000,000,000

If we were to try another approach to the problem and assume that the ten generations of Genesis 5 did not apply to the entire human race, but only to the descendants of Seth, and that the average age of that generation was not the same as that of the ten patriarchs, and that, instead of ten, there were at least fifteen generations between Adam and Noah, while the average family numbered only ten children, we obtain the following results:

First generation ................................................................ 2

Second generation ............................................................ 10

Third generation ............................................................... 50

Fourth generation ............................................................. 250

Fifth generation ................................................................ 1,250

Sixth generation ................................................................ 6,250

Seventh generation ............................................................ 31,250

Eighth generation .............................................................. 151,250

Ninth generation ............................................................... 756,250

Tenth generation ............................................................... 3,781,250

Eleventh generation .......................................................... 18,906,250

Twelfth generation ........................................................... 94,531,250

Thirteen generation ........................................................... 472,656,250

Fourteenth generation ....................................................... 2,368,281,250

Fifteenth generation .......................................................... 11,841,406,250

All this is, of course, pure speculation, for no one can know with any degree of certainty what the population of that world might have been, but I believe that these figures are not fantastic, but quite conservative. It is reasonable to assume that the population was at least equal to the population of the world today. There was sufficient time for such an increase in population, and the physical conditions conductive to population growth were most favorable. Dr. E.A. Ross of the university of Michigan, and authority on population, estimates that if the population of the world increases at its present rate, it will treble in the next century, which would mean that by the year 2023 the world population would be about 5,000,000,000. Dr. Ross also makes the interesting observation that if the human race had started at about the time when Marcus Aurelius was emperor of Rome, and since then had multiplied at the present rate, the population today would be 1,700,000,000. Or in other words, according to this estimate, a period about equal in length to the antediluvian age would be sufficient to increase the human race to a number of 1,700,000,000 provided the race had increased as rapidly as it did during the last century. For reason already stated it is reasonable to assume that the growth of population in the world of Adam and Noah was greater than that of the last century, and Drs. Guy Irving Burch and Elmer Pendell, both experts in the field of population, state in their recent book, Human breeding and survival, that between 1900 and 1940 the population of the earth increased by 563,000,000, and during the ten years immediately preceding World War 2, by 200,000,000. They claim that if India's death rate could be lowered to the level of that of the United States, India with her present birth rate could fill five earths as full as ours, in a single century. China could do the same, and it would not take the U.S.S.R. much longer. The assumed estimate of the antediluvian population must therefore be regarded as extremely conservative.

But if the population had grown into numbers such as indicated, it would be reasonable to assume that man had scattered far beyond the immediate vicinity of the Garden of Eden and had taken possession of the greater part of the face of the earth as God had commanded him. That the latter actually was the case would seem to follow from the fact God destroyed the whole earth and all the beasts and creeping things therein. God destroyed the earth because of the wickedness of man. He would hardly have destroyed the whole earth with all its creatures had this wickedness been confined to a small area, say, of the Euphrates and Tigris Valleys, as has been suggested. God punished the wickedness of Nineveh and destroyed that great city, but not all of Asia. He punished the apostasy of Israel, but because of their unbelief he did not destroy the whole Roman Empire. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die.

The question now arises: What do the rocks reveal concerning the possible spread of the human race? Have we the same evidence here as we have in the case of plants and animals? Strange to say, on this question the rocks are astonishingly silent. There is only very meager fossil evidence concerning the geographical distribution of the human race in the antediluvian world, and in many cases the interpretation of the available evidence is questioned by competent authorities. However, we are not left altogether in the dark. There is some fairly reliable evidence gathered in nearly every part of the earth, and as time goes on, further remains of antediluvian man and his civilization no doubt will be found.

Prof. Hugo Obermaier of the University of Madrid has accumulated a great deal of material on man's early existence in this world. He found that of the European countries, France has the greatest number of human fossils. But fossil human remains are by no means limited to France or Europe alone. Of the material that he has gathered, I shall select only a few examples.

Obermaier reports the discovery of a cave in France where human remains were found together with the bones of the cave bear, the cave hyena, the cave lion, the leopard, the great deer, the mammoth, the wolf, the woolly rhinoceros, and the reindeer. That is, man is found with the remains of animals which are now either extinct or never had their habitat in those parts of the world during historic times.

According to the same author, a human skull was found in 1865 near Colmar in Alsace in a deposit of loess, 2½ meters below the surface and associated with the woolly mammoth, the bison, and other prehistoric animals.

In 1914 a complete human skeleton was found near Strassburg in a deposit intermixed with pebbles and also associated with the remains of a prehistoric mammoth.

In Belgium, near Namur, human remains were found associated with the remains of the mammoth, the wooly rhinoceros, the giant deer, the reindeer, and other animals.

In 1857 human remains were found in Devonshire, England again with the same prehistoric animal remains already enumerated.

The Rock of Gibraltar has yielded up human remains together with the remains of a flora and fauna quite different from that found in that region today.

In 1914 human fossils were found in a quarry near Weimar, Germany, at a depth of 11.9 meters below the surface. Associated with these human remains were found wood ashes, flint implements, the remains of the rhinoceros and the cave bear. And two years later, in the same vicinity, the skeletal remains of a child were discovered together with the fossils of a rhinoceros, a cave bear, and other prehistoric animals.

In Honan, China, human remains were found in a deep loess deposit with the remains of the wild boar, the bison, and the mammoth.

A very important discovery was made in northern Rhodesia, Africa, in 1921, while men were working in the mine known as the "Bone Cave." Here were found a great number of fossilized and partly fossilized remains, including the elephant, lion, rhinoceros, antelope, and the bones of many smaller animals and birds. Amidst this strange accumulation of animal bones was also found an almost complete human skull with other human bones.

In the year 1700 Duke Erhardt Ludwig of Wuerttemberg caused some excavations to be made at Cannstadt, near Stuttgart, where a human skull was found with remains of animals, among which were the mammoth, the bear, and the hyena.

In 1833 M. M. Schmerling published a treatise on the ossiferous fossils discovered in the province of Liege, Belgium. The author shows that human remains were found here together with those of the rhinoceros, the hyena, and the cave bear. In one cave the remains of three individuals were found, the skull of a young person being imbedded by the side of a mammoth tooth. Flint knives, polished, needle-shaped bones, with holes pierced through them, were found in the same deposit together with a rhinoceros. In 1860 Sir Charles Lyell revisited the caves near Liege and confirmed the previous reports.

Between 1840 and 1846 Boucher de Perthes discovered in the so-called quaternary gravels in the valley of the Somme at Abbeville a large number of flint implements whose origin was ascribed by the noted Professor Prestwich and Mr. John Evans as dating from a period when the mammoth and his companions were still living in that region.

While visiting America, Sir Charles Lyell examined the human remains found near Natchez on the Mississippi. Here human fossils were found on the base of the loess cliff with the remains of the mastodon, the bones of a horse, the remains of an elephant, a rhinoceros, and other animals now extinct or found only in a tropical climate.

In 1874 Professor Anghey found a large paleolithic arrow, or spearhead, below 20 feet of loess deposit a few miles southwest of Omaha, and associated with these manmade implements were found the vertebrae of an elephant. Other arrowheads were found fifteen feet below in a loess deposit in the valley of the republican River in Nebraska.

Human remains and man-made implements were also found together with prehistoric animals in Pennsylvania and New Mexico and elsewhere. In South America similar remains were found in Brazil and other countries.

Dr. G. F. Wright writes that at Lansing, Kansas, near Leavenworth, a human skeleton was found buried at the foot of a deposit of loess, providing that man was in the valley of the Missouri River before this great loess deposit was laid down.

In 1931 A. M. Brooking of Hastings (Nebraska) Museum excavated a large mammoth near Angus, Nebraska, and found under the left scapula a large fluted arrow, proving that man was a contemporary of the mammoth in the territory now a part of the State of Nebraska.

In 1932 another man-made projectile was found together with the fossil remains of a mammoth near Derit, a small town in Weld County, Colorado.

Still further proof of the contemporaneity of man and the mammoth in North America was furnished in 1938, when Dr. Cyrus N. Roy and Dr. Kirk Byron found man-made implements with the remains of mammoth bones about thirty miles southwest of Abilene, Texas. Other artifacts were found in a gravel put between Clovis and Portales, New Mexico, together with the remains of a mammoth, a bison, and a horse. Similar evidence has been found in western Canada as far north as Ponoka, Alberta, and east as far as Regina, Saskatchewan.

In a bed of course gravel near Scottsbluff, Nebraska, known as the Scottsbluff Bison Quarry, arrowheads, knives, and scrapers were found, associated with the remains of an extinct bison and fossil skulls. Today this is a very dry country and not suitable for farming unless the land can be irrigated. These fossils were found at a great depth. Similar remains were found near Grand Island, Nebraska.

One of the most important discoveries of human remains of great antiquity was made in the Sandra Cave in the Las Huertas Canyon, New Mexico. In this cave were found a variety of man-made implements together with the fossil remains of such animals as the horse, the camel, the bison, the mammoth, the ground sloth, and the wolf.

It is interesting to note that the geological evidence found in the strata indicates that the layers underlying the fossiliferous deposits were laid down in water. This is all the more significant since the entire region is extremely arid.

One of the most valuable discoveries of ancient human remains is the so-called Calaveras skull found in 1886 in Bald Hill, Calaveras County, California. This skull was found in a shaft of a mine one hundred and thirty feet below the surface in a layer of gravel overlaid by several beds of lava and gravel.

In 1915 Dr. E. H. Sellards found the remains of a man near Vero, Florida, in a stratum which had been laid down by water. In the same vicinity but somewhat removed were found specimens of an extinct fauna, including the mammoth. Similar remains were found near Melbourne, Florida.

In 1929 a human skull was found at Bishop's Cap Peak, New Mexico, by Roscoe Conkling. This skull was found twelve feet below the surface, and at a depth of twenty-one feet a second human skull was found, associated with the bones of the horse, the cave bear, the camel, and the sloth. The strata in which these remains were found show clear evidences of water action.

In 1926 a mammoth skull and below it some artifacts and the bones of a bison and a horse were found twelve miles northwest of Douglas in southwestern Arizona. A careful survey of the surrounding territory yielded further evidence of the existence of prehistoric man in these parts of North America. Among the remains found were grinding stones associated with the bones of the horse, the bison, the pronghorn antelope, and extinct species of the wolf, the coyote, and the mammoth.

In 1930 Dr. Mark Harrington found some human remains together with the fossils of a now extinct ground sloth and of an extinct camel in the gypsum cave sixteen miles east of Las Vegas, Nevada.

In 1935 J. C. Mckinley discovered a human skull and other bones on the banks of the Cimarron River a little more than thirteen feet below the surface. In 1931 highway workers at Pelican Rapids, Minnesota, uncovered an almost complete human skeleton at a depth of ten feet in so-called glacial silt. The experts agreed that the geological evidence points to a great antiquity fo these remains.

In 1933 William K. Jensen discovered a human skeleton in association with artifacts of recognized antiquity at Browns valley, Travers County, Minnesota. Again the geological evidence shows that the gravel ridge had been formed by the action of water.

In 1929 the University of Pennsylvania conducted an extensive excavation at the ancient site of Ur in the lower Euphrates Valley, under the direction of Professor Woolley. After digging through the remains of several cities that had existed successively on the same site, Professor Woolley finally came to a thick deposit of blue clay, and digging through it, he discovered another city representing an older and more magnificent civilization than those above this level. Dr. Woolley classified this lower city as being antediluvian in origin. Other scholars have examined his findings and have confirmed his interpretation.

Bassett Digby, F. R. G. S., has accumulated a great deal of material on this subject. He writes: "We have two kinds of convincing evidence of man's existence with the mammoths. The first is, numerous discoveries of intermingled bones of man and the mammoth in caves and subterranean deposits, sometimes with the implements, ornaments, and weapons, carved from mammoth ivory of fine quality. The second is the remarkable series of engravings on bones, ivory, and the roofs and wallsof caves that have been found during the last sixty years in Spain, the south of France, and Belgium."

This author enumerates a great number of such discoveries. In the cave of Spica on the Jurassic Mountains in northern Moravia, bones of the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the charred remains of several campfires, flint implements, and parts of human jawbones, and human teeth were found. In Croatia, fragments of a dozen human skulls were found mixed up with the bones of the woolly rhinoceros and the mammoth. In another place in Moravia, near Prerov, mammoth bones were found not only below and on the same level as the bones of men, but also above them. More than 25,000 flint implements and hundreds of objects, many of them highly artistic, of reindeer horns, mammoth ivory and bones have been brought to light along with several human skulls and bones. Besides this, a sepulchral chamber containing fourteen complete human skeletons and parts of six others was discovered. Around the neck of one of these skeletons, that of a child, was a necklace of fourteen small mammoth ivory beads. Mammoth bones and flint implements were found near Villendorf, lower Austria. A human skeleton, over which lay a mammoth tusk and the shoulder blade of a mammoth, and near by some woolly rhinoceros ribs were found at Brunn, the chief town of Moravia. Similar discoveries were made in Parts of Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, and elsewhere.

There is also a possibility that much of what historians have ascribed to Sumerian civilization in the Babylonian Valley and elsewhere really belongs to the antediluvian period.

Sir William Dawson in speaking about the early appearance of man on this earth has this to say: "In the meantime we may consider it as established beyond cavil that man was already in Europe immediately after the glacial period and was contemporary with the species of animals, many of them large and formidable, which at that time occupied the land. He must have entered upon the possession of a world more ample and richer in resources than that which remains to us." Likewise F. A.. Lucus of the American Museum of Natural History writes: "That man was a contemporary of the mammoth in southern Europe is fairly certain, and not only are the remains of the mammoth and man's flint weapons found together, but in a few instances some primeval lancer carved on slate, ivory, or reindeer antlers, sketchy outlines of the beast."

This may suffice to show that there is some evidence in the form of human remains which seems to indicate a fairly wide distribution of the antediluvian race, and that it is not unreasonable to assume that man had taken possession of a very large part of the earth as it then existed. But it must also be admitted that the interpretation of some of this evidence is very uncertain and has been disputed by competent judges. Clear and unmistakable fossil remains preserved in the rocks, such as we have in such great abundance of plant and animal life, are still comparatively few. It may be said, however, that the earth has been barely scratched and that only at a few isolated places have careful excavations been undertaken, and future discoveries may bring further evidence to light. It is also quite possible that the areas which were most densely populated are now submerged below the sea or buried by thousands of feet of debris. Sodom and Gomorrah were not only destroyed by fire and brimstone, but the very sites on which they stood are buried below the briny water of the Salt sea, so that no human eye shall ever again behold the cursed ground on which this wicked race once trod. And so it might be with many of the chief population centers of the world that perished in the Flood. For the present at least, it would seem that it was God's deliberate plan, not only to destroy, but utterly to wipe out the memory of that ungodly race of men on account of which this terrible destruction was brought upon this wonderful world which he had made.

CHAPTER III

The Civilization of the Antediluvian World

To complete our picture of the world before the Flood, we must add a word about the condition of man and the civilization as it existed in the world. By civilization we mean the general level of enlightenment and progress of the human race, including the social, moral, and religious conditions of that time.

In a textbook for ancient history which has ben widely used in the high schools of the United States and Canada, the author introduces the subject of the first men on earth as follows: "The first men were more helpless than the lowest savages in the world today. They had neither fire nor light, no tools or weapons except their hands, and chance clubs or stones. We do not know a great deal about the earliest steps upward, towards civilization, but they must have been very slow. The first marked gain was the discovery by some savage that he could chip off flakes from a flint stone by striking it with other stones to give it a sharp edge, or keen point, and a convenient shape for the hand to grasp. This invention lifted man into the first stone age, in Europe the stone age began at least 100 thousand years ago."

H. G. Wells in hisOutline of History, a book which has had the tremendous distribution of nearly three million copies in English and other languages, describes the early history of man in similar words but with much greater detail. He writes of the savage ancestor of the human trade with the vividness and the assurance of an American newspaper reporter. He speaks as though he had actually seen that race and had observed its gradual emergence from the state of savagery to its modern form of civilization.

The same views are found in other textbooks used in our American high schools, colleges, and universities. But willfully these textbook writers and their disciples remain ignorant, as Peter says. The Bible has proved itself to be a reliable and an accurate record of the most ancient historical events. In fact, for many large areas of ancient history the Bible is the only record we have. Archaeology, excavation, and honest historical research have proved the Bible to be an absolutely reliable source book. And yet, when writing these textbooks, modern historians disregard this source material entirely and treat it as though it were non-existent. But this is unscientific, unscholarly, and nothing less than intellectual dishonesty. That branches of the human race have lived in caves, no one will doubt; that large sections of the human family degenerated to the level of savagery cannot be questioned; but to conclude from this that the entire human race has sprung from a race of cave dwellers or has evolved from a race of savages or of beings even lower than a savage, is drawing an unwarranted conclusion.

The account which the Bible gives us of the early history of man is quite different from that of these "historical" and "scientific' textbooks. Man begins as a perfect being, created in the image of God and endowed with the most wonderful intellect and gift of human language. In Gen. 2:20 we read that Adam gave names to all the cattle, the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field. This is mentioned only incidentally, a it were, but this brief incidental remark provides sufficient evidence to show that the first man was endowed with a keen intellect. It presupposes not only a remarkable insight into the nature of the creatures which were brought before him and which he saw for the first time, but also in proof for his outstanding vocabulary, which enabled him to describe or name with fitting designations the things which God had made. There are few, if any, scientists living today who could recognize and name with such supreme ease all living creatures now found in the world. If there be such, they have acquired this knowledge afer years and years of intensive study.

To say, however, that man had his beginning as a being created in the image of God and endowed with a superior intellect does not mean that man was supplied with all the material equipment we commonly connect with the term civilization. God gave him this earth as his abode and commanded him to occupy it and subdue it. This meant that he was to work out for himself a civilization in keeping with his position as lord and ruler of all that God had made. Hence Adam started his career by inventing the most rudimentary implements and tools. We may assume that he knew the use of fire from the beginning. With that and an untarnished intellect, he had all that was necessary to subdue the world and take possession of it.

When sin came into the world, the human intellect suffered as did the rest of his faculties. But even after sin had come into the world, men remained superior beings, and the first race was decidedly a superior one.

In Gen. 4:17 we read that Cain built a city after the name of his own son Enoch. Savages to not build cities. But the most interesting record of the civilization of this age we find in the verses that follow in the same chapter. We read:"And Adah bare Jabal; he was the father of such as dwell in tents and of such as have cattle. And his brother's name was Jubal; he was the father of all such as handle the harp and the organ. And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron." And further on we read: "And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zilla: Hear my voice, ye wives of Lamech. Hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt."

Here we have condensed in a few verses an interesting Kulturbild. We are told of those that dwelt in cities and those that followed the free and wild life of the nomad and the cattleman. We are informed that musical instruments of the string and the wind variety had been invented and that there were those who were able to play them. Tubalcain was an inventor and a master craftsman in brass and iron and a teacher of all such as work in these metals. This does not only presuppose the mining of these minerals, but a knowledge of smelting and purifying them and of molding and shaping them into all manner of useful tools, implements, and weapons. In the words which Lamech addresses to his wives we have the opening line of a poem or a song which he composed to glorify his own murderous deeds. Gen. 2:11-12 we find a reference to fine gold and precious stones in the Garden of Eden. Savages and cavemen have no use for, nor appreciation of, gold and precious stones. Somewhat later Noah is commanded to build an ark of dimensions which would be considered a large building or boat today. This again presupposes a considerable knowledge of mathematics, the possession and use of tools, and an advanced understanding of the art of building.

In other words, we have here at the very beginning of the human race various types of farming, industries, arts, and inventions, music and poetry, or those higher things of life which are only found in an advanced stage of civilization. The inventions of Jubal and Tubalcain were basic and must be counted among the greatest inventions of all time.

We must beware, however, not to assume that the civilization and culture of the antediluvian was on the same high level in every part of the inhabited earth. In that respect, conditions no doubt were then as they are now. Individuals or groups who separated themselves too far from the parent stock, or became completely isolated from the rest of the race over a long period of time, or for other reasons, declined and degenerated. There were savages and barbarous cave dwellers and nomads then as in the world of today. But the race also reached high peaks of civilization and accomplishments, comparable to that of the ancient Babylonians, Assyrians, and Egyptians. It is, of course, very difficult to say just what the world was like in Noah's lifetime. In addition to the very brief reference in the Bible, there are two other possible clues which may give us an answer to that question. The one must be sought in the stage which civilization had attained in the earliest dawn of its postdiluvian nations; the other in the results of modern excavations on the sites of ancient civilizations.

It is one of the most remarkable facts of history that the oldest civilizations of the present world known to us, such as the ones found in the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates, in Crete, in Asia Minor and southern Greece, have peculiar similarities both as to the stages of their development and as to their colossal designs. And all of them are separated by only a comparatively short period of time from the age of Noah and the antediluvian world. Judging from the civilization we find there, Noah must have lived amidst a race enjoying many of the highest results of social and political maturity. In the remotest period of which records survive, we find Egypt exhibiting a degree of civilization that is inexplicable, except on the theory that she had received most of the secrets as a priceless heritage from the world that had perished in the Flood. The magnificent pyramids illustrate the triumphs of architectural science; for their masonry is still unrivaled, their finish still commands admiration, and their proportion and structure reveal an advanced knowledge of geometry and mathematics. Sculpture and statuary had reached a perfection, whether in wood, alabaster, or the hardest granite, which later ages never surpassed in Egypt. The art of picture writing had been perfected. The king's court exhibited all the state and circumstances of well-defined precedence and form. The army, the civil service, and the hierarchy were minutely organized, and society had already divided itself into separate classes, from the wealthy lord to the humble workman and slave. The glass blower, the gold worker, the potter, the tailor, the baker, the butler, the barber, the waiting maids, and the nurse were part of an establishment of the nobility and the priests. The acrobat, the dancer, the harpist, and the singer ministered to the public pleasure, and games of chance and skill were already common.

The records of Babylon and of the countries of the Aegean lead to the same conclusion. On Crete a palace dating back to the earliest postdiluvian period has been unearthed spreading over nearly four acres of ground with splendid halls, corridors, living rooms, throne rooms, and treasure rooms and with many frescoes depicting the brilliant life of the lords and ladies of the court. Especially amazing are the bathrooms with a drainage system superior to anything in Europe until the 19^th century. The pipes could be flushed, and a mantrap permitted inspection repair.

Clay tablets found with writing show that the art of writing was advanced even beyond that of Egypt. In the remains of Mycenae in southern Greece we find the colossal paired with artistic beauty, reminding one of the builders of the pyramids and the tower of babel.

The Code of Hammurabi, discovered by a French explorer in 1992 in Susa, dates back to the time of Abraham. This is the oldest known code of laws in the world, and it shows that the people for whom it was made were already far advanced in civilization. It guarded against bribery of judges and witnesses in court, against careless medical practice, and against ignorant or dishonest building contractors, as well as against the oppression of widows and orphans. Property rights, deeds, wills, marriage settlements, and legal contracts were carefully safeguarded. A similar advanced civilization is found in China and India dating back to about the same period when these early civilizations flourished.

There is but one explanation for this rapid progress among the nations following the flood, and that is that they continued where the generation of Noah left off. They transplanted the civilization of the old world to the new, just as the early Europeans immigrant brought with him the culture and civilization of his homeland to America to give it a fresh start in this new and virgin land.

These conclusions are confirmed by the recent excavation on the site of Biblical Ur in the lower Euphrates Valley, the ancient home of Abraham. In 1922 the university of Pennsylvania and the British Museum agreed to undertake a joint excavation expedition on the ancient site of Ur in Chaldea. Mr. Leonard Woolley was placed in charge of the undertaking. The results surpassed all expectations. As Schliemann found a series of cities, one superimposed upon the other, at the old site of Homer's Troy, so Woolley discovered at the ancient city of Ur the remains of several cities and civilizations, each built on the remains of the one preceding it. And one of the most surprising and by far the most magnificent discoveries was beneath the remains of what appeared to be the first, or foundation, city. Far down below its foundations he found that deep pits had been sunk and subsequently filled with different materials, and at the bottom of these pits he found the tombs of great chiefs, kings, and queens, by the side of whose burial chambers lay the bones of maid servants, harpists, men at arms, and charioteers. He also found ornaments of gold and lapis lazuli and other remains of exquisite art. One of the skeletons, believed to be that of a queen, had on its head a beautiful helmet or headpiece made of gold.

Mr. Wooley, the director of the expedition, gives a very interesting account of these discoveries in his book, Ur of the Chaldees. A few selections from his description will help to make more real the picture of that interesting age.

He writes: "At the very end of the season, 1926-27, two important discoveries were made. At the bottom of an earth shaft, amongst masses of copper weapons, there was found the famous gold dagger of Ur, a wonderful weapon whose blade was of gold, its hilt of lapis lazuli decorated with gold studs, and its sheath of gold beautifully worked with an open-work pattern derived from platted grass; with it was another object scarcely less remarkable, a cone-shaped reticule of gold ornamented with a spiral pattern and containing a set of little toilet instruments, tweezers, lancet, and pencil, also of gold. Nothing like these things had ever before come from the soil of Mesopotamia; they revealed an art hitherto unsuspected, and they gave promise of future discoveries outstripping all our hopes... At the end, on the remains of a wooden bier, lay the body of the queen, a gold cup near her hand; the upper part of the body was entirely hidden by a mass of beads of gold, silver, lapis lazuli, carnelian, agate, and chalcedony, long strings of which, hanging from a collar, had formed a cloak reaching to the waist and bordered below with a broad band of tubular beads of lapis, carnelian, and gold; against the right arm were three long gold pins with lapis heads and three amulets in the form of fish, two of gold and one of lapis, and a fourth in the form of two (sic) seated gazelles, also of gold."

On another page Mr. Woolley gives a detailed description of the helmet worn by the king, whose remains they found in that grave. He writes: "It was a helmet of beaten gold made to fit low over the head with cheekpieces to protect the face, and it was in the form of a wig, the locks of hair hammered up in relief, the individual hairs shown by delicate, engraved lines. Parted down the middle, the hair covers the head in flat, wavy tresses and is bound with a twisted fillet; behind it is tied into a little chignon, and below the fillet hangs in rows of formal curls about the ears, which are rendered in high relief and are pierced so as not to interfere with the hearing; similar curls on the cheekpieces to represent whiskers; round the edge of the metal are small holes for the laces which secured inside it a padded cap, of which some traces yet remained."

"As an example of goldsmith's work this is the most beautiful thing we have found in the cemetery, finer than the gold daggers or the heads of bulls, and if there were nothing else by which the art of these ancient Sumerians could be judged, we should still, on the strength of it alone, accord them high rank in the roll of civilized races." On the basis of these discoveries Woolley evaluates the civilization of the age represented by these remains as follows: "The contents of the tombs illustrate a very highly developed state of society of an urban type, a society in which the architect was familiar with all the basic principles of construction known to us today. The artist, capable at times of a most vivid realism, followed for the most part standards and conventions whose excellence had been approved by many generations working before him; the craftsman in metal possessed a knowledge of metallurgy and a technical skill which few ancient peoples ever rivaled; the merchant carried on a far-flung trade and recorded his transactions in writing; the army was well organized and victorious; agriculture prospered, and great wealth gave scope to luxury." Woolley himself interpreted his discoveries as representing a most ancient civilization.

It is not unreasonable to conclude, therefore, that man before the Flood had not only multiplied and become a great people, but had also taken possession of the earth and had reached a high stage of civilization and culture. He had achieved great things. It was the golden age in the history of man, of which the various mythologies of later ages are but a faint and indistinct echo.

But there is another side to this picture. For parallel with these great material and cultural achievements, there runs a steady course of moral decay and spiritual degeneracy. Polygamy began early in the generation of Cain. Murder and violence increased. Lamech killed a young man and boasted of it in a song and poetry to his wives.

In the genealogies of Genesis 4 and 5 is traced the development of the human race through two fundamentally different lines, headed by Cain and Seth respectively. The one line is called the children of God and the other the children of men. The characteristic traits of these two brothers were passed on to their descendants. The Cainites were wicked and worldly like their father. The Sethites represented the Church of God on earth during this period, through whom the hope of the promised Saviour was kept alive. But as time went on and men began to multiply, these two streams gradually approached each other, and lines of demarcation which had separated them were gradually wiped away. The children of God were influenced by their ungodly neighbors and became like them. This spiritual change first manifested itself when the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair and took them wives of all which they chose. These words indicate that they were no longer being guided by the spirit of God, but gave way to unrestrained freedom, or license. The result was that the children of God became like the children of men, carnal and worldly. They were no longer restrained by the will of God, but were governed by the lusts of the eyes, the lusts of the flesh, and the lusts of the world. This intermarriage with the ungodly, followed by a general moral decay and corruption, resulted in evil growing rampant and gradually destroying all that was good in the world. The line of Seth was completely merged with that of Cain, and with the exception of Noah and his family, and a few of the surviving patriarchs, there was now but one generation left on the face of the earth, namely, that of the ungodly. The moral and social conditions of this age are further descried in these words: "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that the imagination and the thoughts of his heart were only evil continually... The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth."

There were giants, says the sacred writer. Luther translates this word with tyrants. Giants is the translation of the Hebrew word nephilim, which means "those who fall upon others, brigands, thugs, tyrants." Luther says: "Sie werden recht genannt nephilim, darum dass sie ueberfallen und unterdruecken die unter sie getan sind."

These nephilim were famous and renowned in the world. They were great in the affairs of the world, great chiefs who made themselves great names by deeds of war, filling the earth with violence. They were not only godless in their family relations and unrestrained in their carnal lusts, but also violent and lawless in their actions toward their fellow men. There was no fear of God and no respect for His Law. Note how he words corrupt or corrupted, violence, wickedness, and flesh are repeated over and over. Note also that God complains that every imagination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. Their thoughts were bent only upon doing evil, and as man thinketh, so he is. The generation before the Flood was not a pagan or idolatrous race. Mr. Wooley, in describing the prehistoric graves which he discovered at Ur, makes this interesting observation: "In no single grave has there been any figure of a god, any symbol or ornament that strikes one as being of a religious nature."

Idolatry apparently was a later development and is first mentioned after the Flood. The people were proud, lawless, and utterly unconcerned about God and His will. They were progressive and great in the things of this world, but materialistic and carnal in their philosophy of life. In short, man in that age resembled the civilized nations in the world today. Jesus, in describing the age of Noah, says of them: "They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark." In short, they were concerned only about the things of the world. Their philosophy of life was a "this world" philosophy.

The wickedness of the world was so great that God resolved to destroy the world which He had made. For He said: "My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." Only Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, for he was a just man and perfect in his generation. And Noah walked with God.

This is a picture of the world before the Flood. The physical world was great and beautiful beyond our present conception. The race of man then living had increased to great numbers and had taken possession of the earth. It was a superior race in matters of this world, progressive, cultured, and enterprising; but arrogant, godless, and wicked. And because of their wickedness God wiped them away and blotted out their memory and with them even destroyed the earth and everything that was therein.

PART II

The Biblical Account of the Flood

CHAPTER IV

Warning of the Coming Flood

The Biblical account of the Flood is found in the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth chapters of genesis. The language of this extraordinary narrative is simple and direct. There is no appearance of legend or poetry, nothing fanciful or extravagant as in the case of the Flood traditions of other nations. It is a masterpiece in descriptive narrative, gripping and dramatic in style.

We are told that man had become altogether wicked and "that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Up to a certain period in that early history of the human race the children of God had kept themselves separate from the children of men; but, as men began to multiply, the line of demarcation gradually vanished. Cordial relations came to exist. The godly intermarried with the ungodly. The result was that the godly were absorbed by the ungodly. Only one class remained. God warned them. He gave them 120 years time for repentance, but to no avail. The downward course once entered upon was continued, and it "repented the Lord that He had made man." The language used here is an expression of the figure of speech called anthropomorphism, by which the thoughts and acts of God are described in language that would be appropriate to men in like circumstances. "And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them, and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth." Less severe measures would not meet the case. It was necessary to wipe out this wicked generation to save the human race from total annihilation and to make possible the fulfillment of the promise concerning the Seed of the woman. To perpetuate the race, Noah and his family were chosen. We are told that "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." He is called a just man and perfect in his generation, and, like Enoch, he walked with God. Noah testified against the wickedness and corruption of his age, for Peter, in his Second Epistle, calls him a "preacher of righteousness" (2 Peter 2:5). But neither God's warning nor Noah's preaching was of any avail, and so God commanded Noah to build an ark for himself and his family and for a place of refuge for every species of animals. God had resolved to bring a flood upon the earth to destroy it. The Hebrew word "mabbul," translated "flood," is used only for the waters of Noah; and it is used only here and in Ps. 29:10. Noah was to build him an ark, or a vessel, to escape the Flood. The word "ark" seems to be derived from the Egyptian language and signifies "chest" or something to float. The word occurs only twice in the Bible, here for the ark of Noah and again in Ex. 2:3-5 for the ark of bulrushes in which the infant Moses was saved from the cruel decree of Pharaoh.
The ark was built of gopher wood and caulked with pitch within and without. The word "gopher" as used here is merely a transliteration of the Hebrew word. Its exact meaning is not known. Luther translates it with "Tannenholz." Other scholars are of the opinion that the cypress is meant, because cypress wood was used very extensively for shipbuilding in ancient times and also because this species of wood is found in great abundance in the Two-River Valley, where the ark may have been built.

Other specifications for the ark were: "Rooms (cabins or cells) shalt thou make in the ark. The length of the ark shall be 300 cubits; the breadth of it 50 cubits; and the height of it 30 cubits; a window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it." (Gen. 6:14-16).

The dimensions of the ark are given in cubits. The cubit was a common unit of measurements in ancient times among the Babylonians, Egyptians, and Hebrews. At least two kinds of cubits were known, the common cubit and a cubit which was a handbreadth longer than the common cubit. It is generally supposed that the cubit was the distance from the point of the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. Translated into our own standard of measurements, the common cubit is estimated at about 18 inches. But Petrie, a noted Egyptologist, is of the opinion that it measured 22½ inches. Whether or not Noah's cubit was comparable to any of the cubits now known to us, no one is able to determine. It is not unreasonable, however, to assume that, in keeping with nature about him, man before the Flood was more fully developed and was of a larger stature than now and the length from his elbow to the tip of his finger was even longer than the suggested 22½ inches. Two feet may be more nearly correct. However, it is obviously impossible to determine with any degree of certainty the exact size of Noah's ark. But accepting the lower figures and placing the cubit at eighteen inches and then again at twenty-four inches, we get the following results: According to the lower standard, the ark would have measured 450 feet in length, seventy-five feet in width, and forty-five feet in height. According to the higher figure, the length would have been six hundred feet; the width, one hundred feet; the height, sixty feet. For the sake of comparison, we may note that the well known battleship Oregon, 348 feet long and sixty-nine feet wide, was built in the same proportions as to length and width as the ark. The famous Titanic was 825 feet long and ninety-three feet wide, with a displacement of 46,000 tons. The ships of the maritime nations of the world never approached the dimensions of the ark until about a half century ago. The ships of the ancient Phoenicians and Romans or the ships of the seafaring nations of the Middle Ages were mere toys when compared with the ark. Marine experts have estimated that since the ark was built with a flat bottom and there was no waste space on the bow or stern, it being square on both ends and straight up on its side, it would have had a displacement of about 43,000 tons, according to the lower figures a displacement near equal to that of the ill-fated Titanic.

According to Leonard W. King, the ark had its antetype in a kind of boat still used on the Lower Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Of this vessel, Mr. King writes as follows: "A Kuffah, fhe familiar pitched coracle of Bagdad, would provide an admirable model for the gigantic vessel in which Ut Napishtim rode out the Deluge. Without stem or stern, quite round like a shield - so Herodotus described the kuffah of his day; so , to, is it represented on the Assyrian slabs from Nineveh, where we see it employed for the transport of heavy building material; its form and structure, indeed, suggests a prehistoric origin. The kuffah is one of those examples of perfect adjustment to conditions of use which cannot be improved. Anyone who has traveled in one of these crafts will agree that their storage capacity is immense, for their circular form and curved sides allow for every inch of space to be utilized. It is almost impossible to upset them, and their only disadvantage is lack of speed. For their guidance, all that is required is a steersman with a paddle, as is indicated in the Epic. It is true that the larger Kuffah of today tends to increase in diameter as compared to weight, but this detail might well be ignored in picturing the vessels of Ut Napishtim... The use of pitch and bitumen for smearing the vessel inside and out, though unusual even in Mesopotamian shipbuilding, is precisely the method employed in the kuffah's construction."

A further specification for the ark was: "A window shalt thou make unto the ark and in a cubit shalt thou finish it" (Gen. 6:16).The question is: "What was meant by this window and were was it placed?" Luther says the Hebrew word translated window literally means "the light of noonday." The new American translation renders it: "You are to make a roof for the ark, finishing it off at the top to the width of a cubit." Delitzsch says the Hebrew word means "double light," or "midday." The passage can signify only that a hole or opening for light and air was to be constructed so as to reach within a cubit of the edge of the roof. A window only a cubit square could not possibly be intended, for the Hebrew wore signifies generally a space for light, or space by which light could be admitted into the ark and in which the window, or lattice for opening and shutting, could be fixed. Dr. Stoeckhardt took a similar view and understood it to mean an opening of some kind to be left all around the top of the ark, a cubit below the roof. The exact meaning is therefore not absolutely certain. So much, however, is clear that Noah was to provide some kind of an opening in the ark to admit the necessary light and make provision for ventilation.

Father Kircher, in his book Arca Noe, published in 1675, presents an interesting description of the ark. He divides it into small compartments for the various species, provides for a drinking place on each floor. The land animals he placed on the first floor, the food he stored on the second floor, and the birds and Noah's family were placed on the third floor. He greatly reduces the number of species of animals and maintains that besides the window mentioned in Genesis there were small openings all over the ark through which the air entered and that the ventilation system was similar to that of the large ocean liner of today with its windows and portholes. The book is in the New York Public Library.

The three stories of the ark were to be subdivided into cabins or cells. This wou