Noah’s Ark by Simon de Myle (1570); in the public domain from Wikimedia Commons
Even a casual reader of the Biblical account of the Flood in Genesis 6-8 will see the text describes a worldwide, not a local flood. The problem is there is no scientific evidence to support a worldwide flood. Some people believe this means the science must be wrong if the Bible says there was a worldwide flood. Young earth creationists point to the so-called scientific evidence of flood geology for a global flood, but it just doesn’t “hold water.” So do you have to choose between the Bible and science with regard to the Flood?
In their book, The Lost World of the Flood, Tremper Longman and John Walton noted how some scholars, feeling the persuasive power of the lack of any geological evidence for a worldwide flood, want to argue the biblical text describes a local flood. They said the local flood interpretation was “a noble attempt” to make sense of the lack of scientific evidence for a global flood while it held fast to the Bible. “In spite of its good intentions and proper motivations, the attempt to interpret the biblical text as knowingly describing a local flood remains unconvincing.” Longman and Walton believe while the rhetoric of the flood narrative is intentionally universal, “it is actually the impact and significance that is universal rather than the range and scope” of the flood itself. In other words, “Genesis 6-9 pertains to a local flood described rhetorically as a worldwide flood to make a theological point.”
The rhetorical device used in the Flood narrative is hyperbole, conscious exaggeration for the sake of effect. In How to Read the Bible as Literature, Leland Ryken said hyperbole does not intend to be factual. It actually suggests a lack of literal truth in what it says. For example, Genesis 41:57 says that “all the earth” came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph because the famine was so great. Deuteronomy 10:22 said while only seventy Israelites went down to Egypt, “the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.”
Ryken added that hyperbole expresses emotional truth. “Hyperbole is the voice of conviction.” People use hyperbole in everyday discourse when they feel strongly about something—“No one believes that!” In the Gospel of Matthew after finishing with the rich young man, Jesus said the rich only enter the kingdom of heaven with great difficulty. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
Longman and Walton noted how the Bible also describes historical events besides the Flood narrative hyperbolically to make a theological point. They pointed to the conquest of the Promised Land in Joshua 1-12. “If we read Joshua 1-12 as a straightforward, dispassionate report of the wars in Joshua, we would have to conclude that all of Canaan was taken by the Israelites and not a single Canaanite survived.” Yet Joshua 13:1-6 is a description of all the lands that remained to be conquered when he was “old and advanced in years.” A rough estimate would place at most only fifty percent of Canaan in Israelite hands at that time. Judges 1 confirms the Israelites still had more of Canaan to conquer, as the Israelites “did not drive them out completely.”
We believe that rather than trying to woodenly harmonize the two accounts, we should recognize that the author of Joshua emphasized accounts of victories and omitted setbacks and defeats in order to celebrate the beginning of the Abrahamic promise of land. . . . The conquest narratives, thus, are interested in the success of the conquest since they showed God was fulfilling his promise made in Genesis 12:1-3.
Beginning with Genesis 6:5-8, the account of the flood uses hyperbole to describe the pervasive chaos and wickedness of humanity—every intention of the thoughts of the human heart was only continual evil. The Lord was sorry he made humans and intended to return all of creation to chaos or non-order by blotting out humanity and all other creatures, “for I am sorry that I have made them.” Yet Noah found favor in his sight.
Only the most literally minded would take this language to mean that everyone on earth had only evil motives for every act. However, the hyperbole certainly expresses well the fact that evil had reached an unprecedented level and that God was going to act to restore order.
Even the ark’s dimensions are hyperbolic. Genesis 6:15 described the ark as about 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. Ancient ships that could navigate in the Mediterranean depicted in ancient Egyptian art from around 2500 BC were no longer than 180 feet in length. “It is hard to imagine ancient readers taking this description as if it referred to an actual boat. There would have been nothing like it or even close in the ancient world.”
Indeed, it is probably easier for a modern audience to misunderstand the text and take it as if it is describing an actual boat. Certainly that is the case with Ken Ham, a leading young-earth creationist. In July of 2016 Ken Ham opened the Ark Encounter, a “life-sized” replica of the ark that people can go on. Ham’s stated purpose is to show that a literal ark of these dimensions can be built and can house all the animals necessary to survive the flood.
Mid-eighteenth century wooden boats reached lengths of 327 to 329 feet. But they were “built with iron bolts and steel supports” which were not available to Noah. And they were notoriously unstable in the water. “Let’s remember that the ark as described in the Bible, if taken as precise measurements of an actual boat, is larger than any wooden boat built not just in antiquity but at any time, including today.”
An ancient reader would have recognized the description of the flood itself as hyperbolic language. The fountains of the great deep burst; and the windows of the heavens were opened (Genesis 7:11). This reflects an ancient cosmology of a flat earth with subterranean waters (the fountains of the great deep) and more waters above the firmament released by opening the windows of heaven. See “Why Is The Sky Blue?” for more on this cosmology and its presence in the Babylonian creation myth.
As the waters flowed from deep within the earth and from the sky, “they lifted the ark high above the earth” (Gen 7:17). Even the “high mountains” were covered (Gen 7:19), and not just covered but with water rising to more than fifteen cubits (twenty-three feet) above the mountains. The description truly is that of a worldwide flood, not a local flood. Though modern readers don’t see it, the original audience would have understood that such a description is hyperbole.
Longman and Walton believe the biblical authors sometimes used hyperbole to make important theological points. And they used it in a way they expected their readers to recognize, not only with the Genesis flood narrative. Recall the last verse of the Gospel of John, once again clearly using hyperbole: “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”
The presence of hyperbole in Scripture is also not contradictory to a belief in the evangelical doctrine of inerrancy. They pointed out where this is substantiated in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, Article 13:
WE AFFIRM the propriety of using inerrancy as a theological term with reference to the complete truthfulness of Scripture.WE DENY that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and error that are alien to its usage or purpose. We further deny that inerrancy is negated by Biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern technical precision, irregularities of grammar or spelling, observational descriptions of nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and round numbers, the topical arrangement of material, variant selections of material in parallel accounts, or the use of free citations.
Seeing hyperbole in Genesis 6-8 does not take us back to the forced choice referred to in the opening paragraph, with hyperbole neutralizing the Biblical text in order to have it agree with science. Describing a real event in hyperbolic language doesn’t make it a myth. As Longman and Walton said: “There is a real event behind the story just as there was an actual conquest behind the hyperbolic presentation of Joshua’s conquest.” The parallels between Ancient Near East flood stories and Genesis 6-8 suggest a common previous event—a devastating flood that killed many people. “Stories about the flood were passed down orally for generations from those who descended from the time the flood actually occurred.” The similarities and differences between the Biblical and ANE flood stories, as well as tantalizing scientific evidence of a possible flood that spawned them will be discussed in Part 2.