The story teaches about the Earth and what we understand of the creation the Earth, sky, Sun, Moon, animals and more esoteric things. It is so heavy in the use of metaphors that any that try a literal understanding do themselves and others disservice, and that is true of most of the Scriptures they can not be understood correctly in the literal.

PhD in "Bible-Ology" from Minnesota Baptist College

This post is to show how far and wide "flood stories" exist from the various cultures around the world.
I have been doing some searching and to what I have discovered, there are very few scientific studies that have been done to prove or disprove the earth could have been or was flooded at one time. The data is not there for an accurate assesment.

Hi guys, hope you don't mind if I join in for a sec. One scenario I've always thought would make it 'do-able' would have been hibernation. Many, maybe most, of the animals might have been sleeping. If the flood happened and if the ark was built, and I'm not sayin' yea, or nay - just speculatin'. Food consumption and elimination would have been greatly lessened if they (the animals) were sleeping. Just my 2 cents.

Looking at that Korean study I have to ask myself if while they were wondering if the design was plausible did they even begin to ask themselves anything about the actual geography and history of the region?

To engage in a make-work project of that magnitude and to command the level of resources of that amount in that short order as well as the amount of labour required to build such a vessel, he would have to be. Never mind the fact that he would require a time machine to obtain the engineering and shipbuilding know-how from centuries in the future...at least the Roman era if not later and before you ask, yes I have done some limited reading on the subject, but if you don't believe me I think any primer on the subject of shipbuilding and the vast amount of labour and materials required for such an undertaking would disabuse you (unless you are hopelessly deluded ) of this notion.

Why not just say it was all a miracle and be done with it, hmm?

Except for the small problem that there is absolutely no way to prove this historically while in fact the archaeological record supports the opposite and makes a lie of the above claim.

Comparison of Genesis and Gilgamesh

Genesis Gilgamesh

Extent of flood Global /Global
Cause Man’s wickedness /Man’s sins
Intended for whom? All mankind /One city & all mankind
Sender Yahweh /Assembly of “gods”
Name of hero Noah /Utnapishtim
Hero’s character Righteous /Righteous
Means of announcement Direct from God /In a dream
Ordered to build boat? Yes /Yes
Did hero complain? No /Yes
Height of boat Three stories /Seven stories
Compartments inside? Many /Many
Doors One /One
Windows At least one /At least one
Outside coating Pitch /Pitch
Shape of boat Oblong box /Cube
Human passengers Family members only /Family & few others
Other passengers All kinds of land animals (vertebrates) /All kinds of land animals
Means of flood Underground water & heavy rain /Heavy rain
Duration of flood Long (40 days & nights plus) /Short (6 days & nights)
Test to find land Release of birds/ Release of birds
Types of birds Raven & three doves /Dove, swallow, raven
Ark landing spot Mountains—of Ararat /Mountains—Mt Nisir
Sacrificed after flood? Yes, by Noah /Yes, by Utnapishtim
Blessed after flood? Yes /Yes
Which came first?

We can see from the table that there are many similarities, which point to a common source. But there are also significant differences. Even the order of sending out birds is logical in Noah’s account. He realized that the non-return of a carrion feeder like a raven proved nothing, while Utnapishtim sent the raven out last. But Noah realized that a dove was more logical—when the dove returned with a freshly picked olive branch, Noah knew the water had abated. And its non-return a week later showed that the dove found a good place to settle.

Genesis is older

It makes more sense that Genesis was the original and the pagan myths arose as distortions of that original account. While Moses lived long after the event, he probably acted as the editor of far older sources.9 For example, Genesis 10:19 gives matter-of-fact directions, ‘as you go toward Sodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboiim’. These were the cities of the plain God destroyed for their extreme wickedness 500 years before Moses. Yet Genesis gives directions at a time when they were well-known landmarks, not buried under the Dead Sea.

It is common to make legends out of historical events, but not history from legends. The liberals also commonly assert that monotheism is a late evolutionary religious development. The Bible teaches that mankind was originally monotheistic. Archaeological evidence suggests the same, indicating that only later did mankind degenerate into idolatrous pantheism.(Schmidt, W., The Origin and Growth of Religion, Cooper Square, New York, 1971.)

For instance, in Genesis, God’s judgment is just, he is patient with mankind for 120 years (Genesis 6:3), shows mercy to Noah, and is sovereign. Conversely, the gods in the Gilgamesh Epic are capricious and squabbling, cower at the Flood and are famished without humans to feed them sacrifices. That is, the human writers of the Gilgamesh Epic rewrote the true account, and made their gods in their own image.

The whole Gilgamesh-derivation theory is based on the discredited Documentary Hypothesis.(Grigg, R., Did Moses really write Genesis?)

This assumes that the Pentateuch was compiled by priests during the Babylonian Exile in the 6th century BC. But the internal evidence shows no sign of this, and every sign of being written for people who had just come out of Egypt. The Eurocentric inventors of the Documentary Hypothesis, such as Julius Wellhausen, thought that writing hadn’t been invented by Moses’ time. But many archaeological discoveries of ancient writing show that this is ludicrous.
All people groups remember a global Flood

Liberals often claim that the Gilgamesh epic was embellished from a severe river flood, i.e. a local flood. This might work if there were similar flood legends only around the ancient near east. But there are thousands of such flood legends all around the world—see the chart below for some examples.

Flood Traditions chart

Even the Australian Aborigines have legends of a massive flood, as do people living in the deep jungles near the Amazon River in South America. Dr Alexandra Aikhenvald, a world expert on the languages of that region, said:

‘… without their language and its structure, people are rootless. In recording it you are also getting down the stories and folklore. If those are lost a huge part of a people’s history goes. These stories often have a common root that speaks of a real event, not just a myth. For example, every Amazonian society ever studied has a legend about a great flood.’ (Barnett, A., For want of a word, New Scientist 181(2432):44–47, 31 January 2004.)

This makes perfect sense if there were a real global Flood as Genesis teaches, and all people groups came from survivors who kept memories of this cataclysm.
Ark shape
Ark tilt diagram
Diagram showing how resistant the Ark was to capsizing. After Henry Morris, The Biblical basis for modern science.
Click on picture for high resolution (126 kb).

The Ark was built to be tremendously stable. God told Noah to make it 300x50x30 cubits (Genesis 6:15) which is about 140x23x13.5 metres or 459x75x44 feet, so its volume was 43,500 m3 (cubic metres) or 1.54 million cubic feet. This is just right to keep the boat from capsizing and to smooth the ride. There are three main types of rotation in ships (and planes), about three perpendicular axes:


1) Yawing, rotation about a vertical axis, i.e. the bow and stern move alternately left to right.
2) Pitching, rotation about a lateral axis, an imaginary line left to right, i.e. the bow and stern move alternately up and down.

3) Rolling (or heeling), rotating about the longitudinal axis, an imaginary line from bow to stern, tending to tip the boat on its side.

Yawing is not dangerous, in that it won’t capsize a boat, but it would make the ride uncomfortable. Pitching is also an unlikely way to capsize a boat. In any case, the enormous length of the boat would make it align parallel to the wave direction, so these disturbances would be minimal.
real Ark scale

Rolling is by far the greatest danger, and the Ark solves that by being much wider than it is high. It would be almost impossible to tip over—even if the Ark were somehow tipped over 60°, it could still right itself, as shown in the diagram (above).

But it would be almost impossible to tip the Ark over even a fraction of this. David Collins, who worked as a naval architect, showed that even a 210-knot wind (three times hurricane force) could not overcome the Ark’s righting moment, which would have stopped the Ark tilting much beyond 3°.

Furthermore, Korean naval architects have confirmed that a barge with the Ark’s dimensions would have optimal stability. They concluded that if the wood were only 30 cm thick, it could have navigated sea conditions with waves higher than 30 m.14 Compare this with a tsunami (‘tidal wave’), which is typically only about 10 m high. Note also that there is even less danger from tsunamis, because they are dangerous only near the shore―out at sea, they are hardly noticeable.

Dr Werner Gitt showed that the Ark had ideal dimensions to optimize both stability and economy of material—

Contrast that with Utnapishtim’s ark—this was a huge cube! It is harder to think of a more ridiculous design for a ship—it would roll over in all directions at even the slightest disturbance. However, the story is easy to explain if they distorted Genesis, and found that one dimension is easier to remember than three, ‘its dimensions must measure equal to each other’, and it seems a much nicer shape. The pagan human authors didn’t realize why the real Ark’s dimensions had to be what they were. But the reverse is inconceivable: that Jewish scribes, hardly known for naval architectural skills, took the mythical cubic Ark and turned it into the most stable wooden vessel possible!
Genesis is the original.

The Gilgamesh Epic has close parallels with the account of Noah’s Flood. Its close similarities are due to its closeness to the real event. However, there are major differences as well. Everything in the Epic, from the gross polytheism to the absurd cubical ark, as well as the worldwide flood legends, shows that the Genesis account is the original, while the Gilgamesh Epic is a distortion.

At this point you're just beating a dead horse.

Because frankly there is no plausible explanation for any of it that is not utter nonsense. charlesedm already did an excellent job of pointing out the fallacies at hand in this utter rubbish..

A....Actually there is. You have to do some rearanging of the earth first. Raise all the ocean floors of the earth to become equal with all land masses at zero sea level and how much land mass do you think would exist above the new sea level? (Please don't tell me you ASSUMED the earth has always had deep sea floors?) In addition, now drop many of the mountain ranges sticking out of this new sea level into it and how much more higher do you think the waters would rise to? Having a hard time believing the earth can change it's shape?

According to his own literature, Chittick, a Newberg, Oregon resident, holds a Ph.D. in physical chemistry and has taught at the University of Puget Sound and George Fox College. Dr. Chittick is also an active lecturer, having traveled in the United State and Canada for the past 30 years, speaking before students both public and private about creationism. In 1981, he was one of five "creation scientists" who testified in pretrial depositions for the Arkansas "Balanced Treatment Act", which required that "creation science" be taught along with evolutionary biology in that state's public schools. And in 1993, his lecture to public high school students in Stanwood, Washington led to a community furor, threats from the ACLU, and a subsequent shakeup in the local school board.

The Bible does not tell us that Noah and his sons built the Ark by themselves. Noah could have hired skilled laborers or had relatives, such as Methuselah and Lamech, help build the vessel. However, nothing indicates that they could not—or that they did not—build the Ark themselves in the time allotted. The physical strength and mental processes of men in Noah’s day was at least as great (quite likely, even superior) to our own.2 They certainly would have had efficient means for harvesting and cutting timber, as well as for shaping, transporting, and erecting the massive beams and boards required.

If one or two men today can erect a large house in just 12 weeks, how much more could three or four men do in a few years? Adam’s descendants were making complex musical instruments, forging metal, and building cities—their tools, machines, and techniques were not primitive.

A very common view is that the biblical story of Noah’s Flood was not historical at all, and was borrowed from flood legends in Mesopotamia. But the evidence fails to bear this out and proves that the Epic of Gilgamesh is a distortion and found blatantly so with comparative analysis:-

It is common to make legends out of historical events, but not history from legends. The liberals also commonly assert that monotheism is a late evolutionary religious development. The Bible teaches that mankind was originally monotheistic. Archaeological evidence suggests the same, indicating that only later did mankind degenerate into idolatrous pantheism.(Schmidt, W., The Origin and Growth of Religion, Cooper Square, New York, 1971.)

Literature, including the Bible, as evidence is not useful or valid. It offers no scientific validation, and actually offers only MORE contradiction to known and verifiable reality. Widespread flood stories certainly do not support a global flood. The stories differ in nature, time frame, details, etc. Some specifically speak of regional floods. Many speak of someone OTHER than Noah surviving, somewhere OTHER than Ararat. Many of these stories are in regions where there is ample evidence of local or regional prehistoric flooding. There is NO evidence of global flooding.

Scientists once understood the fossils, which are buried in water-carried sediments of mud and sand, to be mostly the result of the great Flood. Those who now accept millions of years of gradual accumulation of fossils have, in their way of thinking, explained away the evidence for the global Flood. Hence, many compromising Christians insist on a local flood.

Secularists deny the possibility of a worldwide Flood at all. If they would think from a biblical perspective, however, they would see the abundant evidence for the global Flood. As someone once quipped, “I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t believed it.”

Those who accept the evolutionary timeframe, with its fossil accumulation, also rob the Fall of Adam of its serious consequences. They put the fossils, which testify of disease, suffering, and death, before Adam and Eve sinned and brought death and suffering into the world. In doing this, they also undermine the meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ. Such a scenario also robs all meaning from God’s description of His finished creation as “very good.”

If the Flood only affected the area of Mesopotamia, as some claim, why did Noah have to build an Ark? He could have walked to the other side of the mountains and escaped. Most importantly, if the Flood were local, people not living in the vicinity of the Flood would not have been affected by it. They would have escaped God’s judgment on sin.
A local flood covering the mountains?

A local Flood?

In addition, Jesus believed that the Flood killed every person not on the Ark. What else could Christ mean when He likened the coming world judgment to the judgment of “all” men in the days of Noah (Matthew 24:37–39)?

In 2 Peter 3, the coming judgment by fire is likened to the former judgment by water in Noah’s Flood. A partial judgment in Noah’s day, therefore, would mean a partial judgment to come.

If the Flood were only local, how could the waters rise to 20 feet (6 m) above the mountains (Genesis 7:20)? Water seeks its own level; it could not rise to cover the local mountains while leaving the rest of the world untouched.

Even what is now Mt. Everest was once covered with water and uplifted afterward. (Mount Everest is more than 5 miles (8 km) high. How, then, could the Flood have covered “all the mountains under the whole heaven?” Before the Flood, the mountains were not so high. The mountains today were formed only towards the end of, and after, the Flood by collision of the tectonic plates and the associated up-thrusting. In support of this, the layers that form the uppermost parts of Mt. Everest are themselves composed of fossil-bearing, water-deposited layers.) If we even out the ocean basins and flatten out the mountains, there is enough water to cover the entire earth by about 1.7 miles (2.7 km). (A.R. Wallace, Man’s Place in the Universe, McClure, Phillips & Co, New York, 1903, 225–226; www.wku.edu/~smithch/wallace/S728-3.htm) Also important to note is that, with the leveling out of the oceans and mountains, the Ark would not have been riding at the height of the current Mt. Everest, thus no need for such things as oxygen masks either.

There’s more. If the Flood were a local flood, God would have repeatedly broken His promise never to send such a flood again. God put a rainbow in the sky as a covenant between God and man and the animals that He would never repeat such an event. There have been huge local floods in recent times (e.g., in Bangladesh); but never has there been another global Flood that killed all life on the land.
Where Is the Evidence in the Earth for Noah’s Flood?


Evidence of Noah’s Flood can be seen all over the earth, from seabeds to mountaintops. Whether you travel by car, train, or plane, the physical features of the earth’s terrain clearly indicate a catastrophic past, from canyons and craters to coal beds and caverns. Some layers of strata extend across continents, revealing the effects of a huge catastrophe.

The earth’s crust has massive amounts of layered sedimentary rock, sometimes miles (kilometers) deep! These layers of sand, soil, and material—mostly laid down by water—were once soft like mud, but they are now hard stone. Encased in these sedimentary layers are billions of dead things (fossils of plants and animals) buried very quickly. The evidence all over the earth is staring everyone in the face.

by Robert Doolan

Dr. Arlton C. Murray is known for digging up fossils and burying evolution.

For most of his life he has worked at excavating fossils and preparing them for professional display. He has worked for the Smithsonian Institution and the National Park Service in Washington, DC, and for the William Penn Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. More recently he excavated a dinosaur for Liberty University’s museum in Lynchburg, Virginia. He has built up such a knowledge about fossils, and enjoys his work with them so much, that when he lectures or talks on this subject he is usually introduced as ‘Mr Fossil’.

Dr. Murray worked for 27 years with the Smithsonian Institution as a field collector and preparator of vertebrate fossils. He proudly admits to being a creationist, and even has the words ‘creation scientist’ printed on his business cards. He was once an atheist and evolutionist, but now totally rejects those former beliefs.

‘The true explanation of the fossil record is very clear’, he says. ‘The only reasonable explanation for the fossil record, and the sedimentary formations in which they are found, is the great cataclysm of the Noachic Deluge.’

During Dr. Murray’s early years at the Smithsonian he was heavily indoctrinated in evolution. ‘Not being a Christian, my indoctrination in evolutionistic geology just seemed to come naturally, and like so many do, I assumed it was all true.’ He says he fell deeply into the rut of evolutionary belief and the study of ‘the age of rocks’.
Found the right rock

At the insistence of some friends, he attended some revival meetings in a little church in Maryland. He sees this as his graduation day from death to life. ‘God reached down and lifted me from the miry clay of evolution to the glorious realm of creation science’, he says. ‘I now had met the “Rock of Ages”—and that Rock is Jesus Christ. He gave me my BA degree—Born Again.’

From that time he started to see the errors and problems with the theory of evolution that he hadn’t noticed before.

For example, he says, ‘Evolutionists assume that in each sedimentary stratum certain fossils appear to be distinctively abundant. To them, these fossils are labelled as index fossils. So they come to the conclusion that the fossils are the means of dating the rocks. But how do they know that index fossils only lived in certain ages and not in others?’ He says the answer is simply the assumption that evolution is true!

Dr. Murray also sees a major obstacle for evolutionists in the fact that the fossil record contains no indication that one type of creature has turned into a completely different type. ‘There is not a single intermediate fossil ever found’, he says. ‘All fossils that are found clearly show that each has developed “after its kind”, as the Bible tells us.’
Exicting find

One of Dr. Murray’s major fossil recoveries was Pennsylvania’s most complete skeleton of a mastodon—an extinct mammal something like an elephant. On a hot Friday in July of 1968, a mining company accidentally unearthed three bone fragments at Marshalls Creek in the Pocono area of Pennsylvania.

‘I was employed by the William Penn Museum at this time, in the departments of archaeology and palaeontology. So I had the honour of going to see the three bone fragments.’

Dr. Murray identified them as belonging to the left rear part of a mastodon skull. Within weeks, he was leading a crew from the museum to Marshalls Creek to excavate the rest of the skeleton. ‘It turned out to be about a 98 per cent complete mastodon skeleton, and represents the most complete skeletal recovery in the State of Pennsylvania.’

And there was more. While preparing the bones for display back at the museum, Dr. Murray found an unusual characteristic of the skeleton. ‘I discovered that this mastodon had suffered a severe case of osteomyelitis, a serious bone infection that is rather rare in vertebrate fossils.’ The mastodon soon became a highly prized exhibit in the William Penn Museum in Pennsylvania.
How his interest began

Dr. Murray says that some of the best times of his life have been out on the fossil fields. His fossil-finding goes back to when he was at a boy scout camp at Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. He was walking along the beach when he found a fairly good specimen of an extinct long-beaked porpoise (Eurhinodelphis bossi) in the cliffs. A few days later his fossil was at the Smithsonian. He was shown around the Smithsonian museum, and his fossil porpoise was given a lot of attention.

‘This is where the “fossil bug” bit me real hard’, he says. ‘The late Dr. Charles W. Gilmore graciously took me under his wing and eventually arranged for me to be employed as a preparator and field collector.’

He says there are many exciting aspects to the science of vertebrate palaeontology. ‘I find that the extensive fossil beds contain many remains of plants and animals in a perfect state of preservation, thus showing they were killed and buried suddenly by a great deluge.’

He believes an excellent example of this is in the millions of fossil fish that can be found. ‘Fossil fish are sometimes found in a very distorted position, showing instant burial and suffocation. It is exciting to uncover these relics of the Flood of Noah’s day and hold in my hand some of the remains of the flora and fauna of that time.’
Creationist dinosaur recovery

One recent fossil dig he took part in was the excavation of a dinosaur in Colorado for Liberty University’s Creation Museum in Virginia. This dinosaur was the first of its kind in any creationist museum.

‘What a thrill it is for me to be out on an expedition for fossils and to see a specimen from the days of the Flood burst out of an obscure antiquity into a very lively present time.’

With more than 45 years’ experience with fossils, Dr. Murray has long been in demand as a lecturer at Christian schools, churches, and other groups. He speaks about vertebrate fossils and their relationship to creation and Noah’s Flood, and about other evidences for creation. Some of his favourite other topics are the archer-fish, which catches insects by stunning them with a jet of water forced through a hole in its mouth, and the design features of spiders.

What about those who say God could have used evolution as His method of creation?

‘There is just no way that the theory of evolution can be reconciled with the truth of creation as recorded in the Bible. And as a former adherent to this false theory of evolution, I can assure anyone that to discount the God of creation and His wonderful works is sheer folly.’

Dr. Murray delights in the fact that his early experiences are now used to God’s honour and glory. ‘The best day in my life was my graduation day from death unto life and from “the age of rocks” to “the Rock of Ages” by the power of the God of creation.’

Scripture does not stand if the Flood was not global.

Could it not just be that these stories are metaphors illustrating certain psychological and spiritual concepts... or GASP! The mythologies of a stone age people who DIDN'T understand nature and created stories to help them come to terms with a very unpredictable planet and passed down through the generations.. flowing out from an almost genetic memory of a local disaster that would have seemed to them to encompass their whole world? Good grief people.. USE YOUR GOD GIVEN ABILITY TO THINK RATIONALLY.. intelligence and logic does not have to preclude faith.. there is still lots of things in the world that are mysterious and wonderful.. and awe-inspiring.

If so, what could Christ possibly have meant

Scripture does not stand if the Flood was not global

which interprets fossil layers as the history of

The evidence all over the earth is staring everyone in the face.

Now, I call your attention to the testimony of a man

For most of his life he has worked at excavating fossils and preparing them for professional display

Arlton Murray received a D. Sc. (Doctor of Science) in 1981 from the Sussex College of Technology in London.

Experience
Arlton Murray started working for the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. in 1934. He worked for 27 years as Paleo-Osteological preparatory and field collector, Division of Vertebrate Paleontology. Some of the fossils he helped prepare are still on display. On one expedition he went to Panama to help excavate a giant ground sloth, megatherium.

He served as Exhibits Construction Specialist for the National Parks Service, Branch of the Museum Department of the Interior in Washington D.C. for 12 years. He helped prepare exhibits of the Indian mounds in Ohio.

He specialized in Archaeological, Paleontological and American Antiquities preparation for three years at the William Penn Museum (now called the Pennsylvania State Museum) in Harrisburg, PA. It is during his time here that he helped excavate and prepare the Marshall’s Creek mastodon. There are pictures of him and the excavation on display at the State Museum.

He was once an atheist and evolutionist

But how do they know that index fossils only lived in certain ages and not in others?’ He says the answer is simply the assumption that evolution is true!

thus showing they were killed and buried suddenly by a great deluge

What a thrill it is for me to be out on an expedition for fossils and to see a specimen from the days of the Flood burst out of an obscure antiquity into a very lively present time

With more than 45 years’ experience with fossils

Dr. Murray has long been in demand as a lecturer at Christian schools, churches, and other groups

There is just no way that the theory of evolution can be reconciled with the truth of creation as recorded in the Bible

My faith is not dependent on the Bible, but because of my faith, I do give the Bible validity. I think the story of a global flood and Noah's ark may have happened. Actually, the more I read the different sources that have been provided on this thread, and also from a previous flood topic, the more assured I am that it did.