March 11, 2023 Steve Sabz

Human civilization did not always enjoy a time of extreme climate stability as is the case in Earth's current interglacial stage of transformation. Periods of widespread glaciation of Earth's continents have occurred since the Precambrian era (more than 570 million years ago), to as recently as 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago during the Pleistocene Epoch.

Several theories have been postulated to explain the cause of such massive glacial progression. Astrophysicist, Hugh Ross, of Reasons to Believe, cites cyclical variations in Earth's rotation axis tilt, and cyclical variations in the elliptical shape or eccentricity of Earth's orbit about the Sun as the two "primary natural drivers of the ice age cycle" (source).

Young Earth Creationist (YEC) organizations, such as the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), Creation Ministries International (CMI), and Ken Ham's Answers in Genesis (AiG), all postulate a global flood as the cause of the last Ice Age. If indeed Noah's Flood encompassed the whole of planet Earth, along with concomitant geologic upheaval, then perhaps an Ice Age would occur. Not only that, but the enormous amounts of heat generated as a result of accelerated radioactive decay would have vaporized anyone or anything that didn't drown in the flood waters.

As we shall see in this article, a Post-Flood Ice Age challenges biblical authority and breaks God's promise to Noah after disembarking the ark.

Universal or Global?

Young Earthers insist that Noah's Flood was global, rather than universal. A global Genesis Flood is one that covers the entire planet Earth, even where no humans inhabit. Andrew A. Snelling, writing for AiG states, "...torrential rain fell globally... all the high hills and the mountains-the whole earth-was covered by a global ocean" (source). Conversely, a universal Genesis Flood is one that occurs locally within a defined region of the Earth, and affects all of humanity, yet doesn't include regions where humanity had not yet migrated. This makes sense because the purpose of Noah's Flood in the first place was to destroy the wicked, along with the land animals and birds associated with them (Gen 6:7).

Snelling uses two Bible passages to support the global flood scenario. These include Genesis 7:11, where Moses writes, "all the fountains of the great deep burst forth", and 2 Peter 3:6, where Peter writes, "the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished." However, other passages in the New Testament use the phrase, "the world", yet we know from the context that the writer did not mean all of planet Earth. For example, Luke writes that a great famine was over "all the world" (Act 11:28, xref. Luk 2:1) during Roman Emperor Claudius' reign (41-54 AD). This was an obvious reference to the Roman Empire-governed world and its citizenry, not the entire Earth. Furthermore, the phrase, "all the fountains of the great deep" (Gen 7:11), does not require a global flood. All of the subterranean and suboceanic stores of water could more reasonably refer to those fountains in the part of the Earth where wicked humanity was confined at the time.

The only reason to suppose that Noah's Flood was global would be if humanity had spread out globally. But this was not the case, since Scripture never states that humans had occupied every corner of the Earth prior to the Flood. Even after the Flood, humanity still intended to remain confined to one region (Gen 11:4). This was why God "dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth" (Gen 11:8) after confusing their language at the Tower of Babel (Gen 11:9). Hence, it wasn't until after the Tower of Babel incident that humanity was forced to migrate out of a local region.

Impossible Rainbow

Michael J. Oard, writing for AiG, states that cool temperatures and tons of snow were "dramatically fulfilled immediately after the Genesis flood." Oard states that colder temperatures were triggered by "huge volumes of volcanic ash and gas that had spewed into the atmosphere", which he estimates would take "at least three years to fall out." This would result in a nuclear winter that would "block out nearly all sunlight all over the world for several months" (source).

However, if Oard's Post-Flood nuclear winter actually happened, then God's use of the rainbow (Gen 9:13-17) as a sign of his promise to never again destroy all of humanity with a flood (Gen 9:11) would have been impossible for Noah to see in an ash-filled atmosphere, since rainbows are the result of the refraction and reflection of light.

Cold and Dark

In addition to the obvious darkness in the absence of sunlight, Oard's supposed Post-Flood Ice Age would have resulted in the absence of the summer months as well. He refers to the 1815 localized volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia that resulted in the "year without a summer." Furthermore, resultant temperatures would drop below-freezing "over the entire globe" (source). If this is at all accurate as Oard claims, then God's promise to Noah that, "cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease" (Gen 8:22), went completely or partly unfulfilled for centuries after the Flood. Thus, a YEC Post-Flood Ice Age would have resulted in a failure on God's part to keep his promise, since Noah would have died half-way through the Ice Age (Gen 9:28), which is supposed to have lasted 700 years after the Flood (source).

CITE:
Sabz, S. (2023, March 11). Post-Flood Ice Age Dilemma. Retrieved from https://scienceandbibleresearch.com/post-flood-ice-age-dilemma.html

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