Did God break the universe at the time of the flood?

[mindlight]

Biblically we know that creation was made good and that Adam and Eve had the potential to live forever in it. Genesis 1-2

Biblically we know that there was a great flood after which conditions for life on earth became significantly more hostile and lifespans diminished. Genesis 6-9

Since God will create new heavens and a new earth to replace the ones we have it seems that the ones we have are broken and therefore need to be replaced. Isaiah 65:17, Revelation 21

Given the above I would like to suggest the following:

1) That radioactive isotopes may date from the flood
2) That some kind of radiation shielding / insulating layer was removed as a result of the flood that has fundamentally reduced the capacity for life to thrive on this planet
3) That whatever God did at the flood was not just a flood but something that impacted the entirety of his creation to the very boundaries of the universe, setting an expiry date to all material reality.

What do you think? Do you think the flood was the crucial event or the fall, or some kind of angelic fiddling in between?

 

[Brother-Mike]

Biblically we know that creation was made good and that Adam and Eve had the potential to live forever in it. Genesis 1-2

Biblically we know that there was a great flood after which conditions for life on earth became significantly more hostile and lifespans diminished. Genesis 6-9

Since God will create new heavens and a new earth to replace the ones we have it seems that the ones we have are broken and therefore need to be replaced. Isaiah 65:17, Revelation 21

Given the above I would like to suggest the following:

1) That radioactive isotopes may date from the flood
2) That some kind of radiation shielding / insulating layer was removed as a result of the flood that has fundamentally reduced the capacity for life to thrive on this planet
3) That whatever God did at the flood was not just a flood but something that impacted the entirety of his creation to the very boundaries of the universe, setting an expiry date to all material reality.

What do you think? Do you think the flood was the crucial event or the fall, or some kind of angelic fiddling in between?

Some thoughts:

1. I believe that the plan for the New Earth was always present, even before Creation. Which is not to say that you're implying any different - only to point out that none of this was reactive. i.e. the final union of brothers and sisters in Christ in the New Earth needed the Fallen World, which needed The Fall, which needed The Garden.
2. God's curse during The Fall does not seem to imply any causal-chain leading to pain and death (i.e. God removed our ability to deal with radiation (your example above) and thus pain and death are upon us. God simply says "the ground is cursed, and you're going to have pain and toil until you return to the dust."
3. If the radiation hypothesis was the case wouldn't we see all death manifest itself much more like genetic mutation or radiation poisoning? Certainly these ARE possible forms of death, but what about heart attacks? Is that due to the heart being so heavily effected by radiation that the attack ensued? Or what about falling off a cliff? Is that death due to radiation having damaged our body so much that we were unable to withstand the trauma of impact? Neither of these seem reasonable.
4. I do agree that pain and death apply to all Creatures, but if you scratch just a bit under the surface there are many questions here: we understand now that "death" may well mean the end of a conscious being, but certainly the body still exists within material space and goes on to holistically participate in many other aspects of Creation starting with driving bacteria and fungi, on up the food chain, right back into the lungs and flesh of other humans.

 

[DamianWarS]

Biblically we know that creation was made good and that Adam and Eve had the potential to live forever in it. Genesis 1-2

Biblically we know that there was a great flood after which conditions for life on earth became significantly more hostile and lifespans diminished. Genesis 6-9

Since God will create new heavens and a new earth to replace the ones we have it seems that the ones we have are broken and therefore need to be replaced. Isaiah 65:17, Revelation 21

Given the above I would like to suggest the following:

1) That radioactive isotopes may date from the flood
2) That some kind of radiation shielding / insulating layer was removed as a result of the flood that has fundamentally reduced the capacity for life to thrive on this planet
3) That whatever God did at the flood was not just a flood but something that impacted the entirety of his creation to the very boundaries of the universe, setting an expiry date to all material reality.

What do you think? Do you think the flood was the crucial event or the fall, or some kind of angelic fiddling in between?

the flood account is actually fairly complex. it is a harmony of 2 existing accounts both in a chiastic structure. In no way is this random. each account is intentionally chiastic which takes a fair bit of organizing on its own and then later woven together to not only preserve the chiastic patterns but also make even deeper nested chiastic patterns, a lot is going on in the text. there is poetry to the harmonized account with a "two by two" theme that is certainly fitting to the account. I would check this paper out while developing conclusions of the text. You may perhaps have a different agenda when looking at the account but its important to understand the canvas the account is written on to better understand what is reasonable to pull out of the account.

 

[mindlight]

Some thoughts:

1. I believe that the plan for the New Earth was always present, even before Creation. Which is not to say that you're implying any different - only to point out that none of this was reactive. i.e. the final union of brothers and sisters in Christ in the New Earth needed the Fallen World, which needed The Fall, which needed The Garden.

Agreed, God foreknew this and had already envisaged an even better outcome for his original creation.

1. God's curse during The Fall does not seem to imply any causal-chain leading to pain and death (i.e. God removed our ability to deal with radiation (your example above) and thus pain and death are upon us. God simply says "the ground is cursed, and you're going to have pain and toil until you return to the dust."
2. If the radiation hypothesis was the case wouldn't we see all death manifest itself much more like genetic mutation or radiation poisoning? Certainly these ARE possible forms of death, but what about heart attacks? Is that due to the heart being so heavily effected by radiation that the attack ensued? Or what about falling off a cliff? Is that death due to radiation having damaged our body so much that we were unable to withstand the trauma of impact? Neither of these seem reasonable.
3. I do agree that pain and death apply to all Creatures, but if you scratch just a bit under the surface there are many questions here: we understand now that "death" may well mean the end of a conscious being, but certainly the body still exists within material space and goes on to holistically participate in many other aspects of Creation starting with driving bacteria and fungi, on up the food chain, right back into the lungs and flesh of other humans.

Adam and Eve in the presence of God living in Eden were going to live forever.
Being cast away from the presence of God into a cursed creation meant pain and death. I guess I am looking for an itemized list of what was lost and how that has distorted the creation we experience today.

Was it the presence of God, the fruit of the tree of life, or some feature of the original design that allowed perfect regeneration and prevented human death before the fall?

That human beings still lived a thousand years after the fall speaks of a world in which the conditions for life were far more conducive to survival. The presence of a vast amount of water vapor in the atmosphere may have provided both insulation and protection from solar radiation while keeping the earth at a decent temperature also. Clearly, the loss of biodiversity and the devastation of a mature ecological architecture that was far better at supporting life than the post-flood world may also be factors here. Radiation is only one of many factors and exposure to it is symptomatic of the deeper issues.

Just as viruses have become unhinged from their created purpose I was wondering if things like the very rocks were products of one or both of these judgments. What place would radioactive isotopes and unstable rocks have in a creation designed to last forever? The fact that they exist now is a puzzle that could possibly be explained by judgment as they are an odd foundation to build a lasting universe. Would the genetic mutations we associate with deformities, and regressions be a consequence of this hostile radioactive input that was not there in the original creation, or is it a built-in feature of the original design to adapt to circumstance? I expect a little bit of both. There was no need for major adaptation in a perfect ecosystem but its collapse allows both harmful mutations and requires useful adaptation. A combination of these two is now observed in the microevolutionary changes we can see in species. But this change would have been completely unnecessary in a perfect world.

 

[mindlight]

the flood account is actually fairly complex. it is a harmony of 2 existing accounts both in a chiastic structure. In no way is this random. each account is intentionally chiastic which takes a fair bit of organizing on its own and then later woven together to not only preserve the chiastic patterns but also make even deeper nested chiastic patterns, a lot is going on in the text. there is poetry to the harmonized account with a "two by two" theme that is certainly fitting to the account. I would check this paper out while developing conclusions of the text. You may perhaps have a different agenda when looking at the account but its important to understand the canvas the account is written on to better understand what is reasonable to pull out of the account.

The chiastic patterns in the flood account are amazing and remind me of good program code. You have a logical sequence. On the one side the application of the judgment and then the backout actions which restore the original situation. At the heart of it are a universal judgment on all mankind and a particular act of salvation for Noah and his family. The whole thing about J and P sources was unnecessary and sounded speculative to me.

I believe Moses wrote this and based it on an oral tradition that went back to Noah and his sons. It is possible that different narrators shared this oral tradition with him with slightly different emphases which he then harmonized in the final text. In fact, this would fit the twelve tribes telling and retelling the stories of their God in slavery in Egypt and passing them down from generation to generation in a format that was memorable. It is possible that the songs and stories diverged in the manner of telling over the centuries while the content they referred to did not.

I also believe that God's words and actions are synchronized and that the way he thinks and speaks contains multidimensional patterns that we unwrap layer by layer and never fully grasp. His historical actions may well give rise to the chiastic patterns of the speech about them revealing memorable and purposeful actions sequenced according to His will.

This pattern of judgment and then restoration in the chiastic framework cannot obscure the fact however that the broad effect of the flood was a massive degradation of the world's ecological architecture and that life spans rapidly decreased thereafter. So the restoration of the world was not complete and even though God remembered Noah the world He restored him to was less vulnerable to the excesses of those wicked pre-flood peoples who could grow their sins over millennia rather than the post-flood standard of mere decades.

 

[DamianWarS]

The whole thing about J and P sources was unnecessary and sounded speculative to me.

There are generally 4 named sources, J, E, D and P or Yahwist (Jahwist), Elohist, Deuteronomist, and Priestly. These were first referenced in a model called the documentary hypothesis which is also referenced in the paper. Where the documentary hypothesis is not widely accepted today the J, E, D and P labels are still used. Often J & E are merged together as one source or the terms are dropped and others are used but it's the same idea. another contributor is added as a Redactor (R) with more of a editor role that may have been responsible for harmonizing the texts and D is not used in the flood account. the flood account in 2 sources is widely accepted among scholars through literary analysis, here is another page that breaks it down, they use the term "Priestly" source and leave the other unnamed but essentially is the same idea as P and J. The flood account is a bit chopping and it seems to repeat itself or go back and forth so this idea of two sources should not be too surprising when you take the time to study the accounts.

Here is a video that expands on some of the histories of the documentary hypothesis and how similar versions are used today. Many are unable to read or watch this sort of stuff without feeling the need to vehemently defend the bible against it. I'm not bothered by it and welcome the critical thinking. Some of the presented dates may cause some knee-jerk reactions but oral accounts pre-date written ones and the actual events predate them all but we can track written accounts far easier than oral events not preserved. Western thinking is very fact driven and tends to gravitate quickly to the facts so the dates will be what we want to see line up with biblical dates and when they don't we get our pitchforks and torches out.

I do think the church tends to process things too literally at times and holds too firm of grip on these things but we shouldn't be scared to define things within tension. I mean look at the creation account, Gen 1 and Gen 2 are two different accounts that don't line up that well and we make up all these amazing ways to reconcile them. Why can't they just be different accounts and both be true at the same time even with their conflicts? might it be possible they are written with different goals in mind? this tends to not be a strong quality of the western church.

 

[coffee4u]

Biblically we know that creation was made good and that Adam and Eve had the potential to live forever in it. Genesis 1-2

Biblically we know that there was a great flood after which conditions for life on earth became significantly more hostile and lifespans diminished. Genesis 6-9

Since God will create new heavens and a new earth to replace the ones we have it seems that the ones we have are broken and therefore need to be replaced. Isaiah 65:17, Revelation 21

Given the above I would like to suggest the following:

1) That radioactive isotopes may date from the flood
2) That some kind of radiation shielding / insulating layer was removed as a result of the flood that has fundamentally reduced the capacity for life to thrive on this planet
3) That whatever God did at the flood was not just a flood but something that impacted the entirety of his creation to the very boundaries of the universe, setting an expiry date to all material reality.

What do you think? Do you think the flood was the crucial event or the fall, or some kind of angelic fiddling in between?

I believe the flood was a crucial event that changed many of the worlds principle ways of working. I agree with points 1 and 2. I do not believe in point 3. The world will end when all those who will believe do believe and the full number is in rather than the world itself having an expiry date.

 

[Tolworth John]

1) That radioactive isotopes may date from the flood
2) That some kind of radiation shielding / insulating layer was removed as a result of the flood that has fundamentally reduced the capacity for life to thrive on this planet
3) That whatever God did at the flood was not just a flood but something that impacted the entirety of his creation to the very boundaries of the universe, setting an expiry date to all material reality.

1/ As the time between the creation, fall and the flood was so small it makes no difference to the half-life of radioactive elements.

2/ nonsence, the abilityfor life to exist on earth has not been reduced.

3/The fall affected All of creation, the flood affected only this planet drasticly reshaping the globe.

 

[mindlight]

1/ As the time between the creation, fall and the flood was so small it makes no difference to the half-life of radioactive elements.

2/ nonsence, the abilityfor life to exist on earth has not been reduced.

3/The fall affected All of creation, the flood affected only this planet drasticly reshaping the globe.

1/ The point was more the origin of unstable elements. I speculate that this was not an original part of God's good creation. The Fall is the most probable beginning point and these radioactive elements are therefore the product of a supernatural judgment.

2/ The bible disagrees, life spans declined dramatically after the flood.

3/ True but I do not believe it was just the volume of water that was the problem with the flood. The Bible account speaks of subterranean upheaval and the old earth with its harmony and an atmosphere that had more water vapor in it forever transformed for the worse.

 

[Tolworth John]

The bible disagrees, life spans declined dramatically after the flood.

The capacity for life has not been reduced, just the length of human life.

I do not believe it was just the volume of water that was the problem with the flood.

The major influence upon the earth was the quantity of water, followed by the volcanic and tectonic activities.

The water canopy is something that is not part of current creationist thinking.

 

[mindlight]

The capacity for life has not been reduced, just the length of human life.

The major influence upon the earth was the quantity of water, followed by the volcanic and tectonic activities.

The water canopy is something that is not part of current creationist thinking.

The evidence is of vegetation and animals in Siberia and even Antarctica that clearly can no longer survive there. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights, and the deeps of the earth were broken open. The waters cleansed the old holistic ecosystem from the surface of the earth, which means soil, worms, and other basic stuff needed for life to grow. Everything was changed and it is hard to see how life afterward could have been as conducive to longevity as life before. The whole structure of life was broken by the flood. The shrinkage of life spans from 1000 to 100 years is a major symptom of that. The Bible seems to suggest that there was more water in the skies before than after the flood.

 

[Tolworth John]

The evidence is of vegetation and animals in Siberia and even Antarctica that clearly can no longer survive there. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights, and the deeps of the earth were broken open. The waters cleansed the old holistic ecosystem from the surface of the earth, which means soil, worms, and other basic stuff needed for life to grow. Everything was changed and it is hard to see how life afterward could have been as conducive to longevity as life before. The whole structure of life was broken by the flood. The shrinkage of life spans from 1000 to 100 years is a major symptom of that. The Bible seems to suggest that there was more water in the skies before than after the flood.

If you checkout creation.com or answersingenesis for there many articles on the flood and the consquences of the flood you'll see that it was truely catestrophic.

You will also see articles about how the flood occured and the idea that the waters above the firament being responcible for the flood are no longer held.

One current idea is that the ' fountains of the deep' were desolved water in rock being released by an earthquae, causing enormous fountains of water to spew into the air and to fall as rain.

 

[BeyondET]

God didn't create presto dirt, things died and made dirt.