This is a fun look at the great flood based on the literal interpretation of the bible and our current study of the earth.
Please feel free to check and correct any math mistakes I make.
Math of the flood:
The bible says the flood covered every mountain. Mount Everest is the current largest mountain. Its approx 5.5 miles above sea level. I have rounded it down to 5 miles because the earth is bumpy and its better to under estimate than over estimate.
There are some theories that mountains werent as high as they are now, and that the flood only flooded a 17,000 foot high mountain. However there are flaws to both of these, and ill address them later.
The Radius of the Earth = 3963 miles
The Radius of the earth with 5 miles of water = 3968 Miles.
The volume of the earth = 260711882973.3396 cubic miles
The volume of the earth with water = 261699925947.5533 cubic miles.
261699925947.5533 - 260711882973.3396 = 988042974.2136999965
So the volume of the flood water = 988,042,974.2136999965 cubic miles. But lets round it to 988,042,974 Cubic Miles.
If this water was put into a sphere, it would have a radius of 618 Miles.
According to this site (
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthwherewater.html) there is a total of 326,000,000 Cubic Miles of water on the earth. So the flood waters were 3 times the total amount of water on the entire earth.
The data says there there is approx 9,016,000 Cubic Miles of water that is currently underground or not filling a space on the surface (like an ocean). These sources of water would include Ground water, soil moisture, and ice caps and glaciers.
The bible says that some of the water came from the ground and some from rain. So if we gave the bible the benefit of the doubt and said that 10x more water resided under ground then, than it does now (10 times more water in the soil and ground water) and that the ice caps melted. We would get 27,160,000 cubic miles of water. It would still only equal 3% of the total flood waters.
Lets take a look at a square foot section of the earth. Over the course of 40 days, it would rain 25608 cubic feet(instead of 26400 cubic feet because of the 792 feet of ground water). We can use this data because we are dealing with a 25608 foot, by 1 foot by 1 foot column.
25608 ft^3 / 40 days = 640.2 cubic feet of water per day per square foot
640.2 ft^3 / 24 hours = 26.7 cubic feet of water per hour per square foot
2.6.7 ft^3 / 60 minutes = 0.4 cubic feet of water per minute per square foot. Or 3 gallons of water per minute per square foot.
That would equal 25.5 pounds of water per minute per square foot.
It doesnt seem like too much water at first, but lets look at it outside of a square foot.
A standard american football field is 360 ft x 160ft (including end zones). 57,600 square feet.
So that would be 0.4 ft^3 * 57,600 = 23,040 cubic feet of water per minute on the football field. Or 172,351 Gallons of water. That would weigh 1,464,983.5 pounds or 732.5 tons of water per minute, will fall on that football field.
The ark is said to be 300 cubits long, by 50 cubits wide. The dictionary definition of a cubit says that its between 17 and 22 so ill use the average of those at 19.5 so the ark was approx 487.5 feet long 81.25 feet wide. Or 39,731.25 square feet. Assuming that the top of the ark was the same approx square footage. That would mean that 15,892.5 cubic feet of water would fall on the ark per minute or 118,884 Gallons per minute. Or 505 tons of water per minute falling on the ark.
After the flood, it was said that a dove brought back an olive leaf. Olive trees grow at the utmost of 5000ft. The weight and power of the flood would probably have destroyed olive trees. The few leaves that would remain would have settled down in the mud.
There are quite a few more problems with the flood, but this is getting rather long so I think ill cut it rather short.
Flood Theories:
I have heard a couple different flood theories about why the literal flood could have happened. None that I have heard so far hold any water.
First: Is that the flood, flooded only high hills, and yet it covered the entire earth because there were no big mountains before the flood. The flood water then somehow formed all the mountains.
There are a couple problems with this. First of all, animal fossils of different dates layer these mountains If the mountains formed from a small hill all at once, then every animal fossil should be around the same date. Second, the earthquakes and geological disasters of the formation of these mountains would be catastrophic. Much more compared to the flood. Both science and the bible lack any reference to a giant catastrophic earthquake and formation of 5.5 mile mountains. So its pretty safe to say that these mountains were there during the flood.
Second: The flood only flooded the top of a 17,000 high mountain.
This would mean that area was left on the earth. So taking the bible literally, god didnt actually cover the entire earth. Nor would the flood secure the death of every animal and man on the planet, as there was still land left for them to run too. Most would die, but a few could remain.
Third: Animals on the ark were taken as babies, so they could fit them all on board.
There are a couple problems with this. First of all, there are quite a few animals that need their mothers to take care of them. This would increase the work load on Noah's family to way beyond the ability of 8 people. To act as a constant parent to many, many babies.
The second problem comes from the fact that many animals learn how to act when they are young. Being held in a captive environment for part of their young days would possibly hinder their ability to live in the real world.The ark was only floating for half a year, however that could be enough to effect some animal babies. However, an adult animal would still remember how to live in the real world and it wouldnt have an effect.
Fourth: Only a small amount of animals were taken aboard, many micro evolved afterwards.
This wouldn't work. Basic Science categorizes a species as an animal that cant breed succefully with another species (there are some species that can, however it doesn't create good results). So every single species on earth, Must have been on the ark. Unless creationists want to concede that macro evolution is possible.
I think this has become long enough.
-Ari