Changing the way we look at the world
The elephant in the room
The story goes that six blind men examined an elephant and came up with six very different descriptions of what an elephant is. Their observations were completely accurate, however, none of them accurately described the elephant. They failed because they focused on one part of the elephant, such as the tail, tusk, trunk, ear and leg.
During the ICC in July, 2023, someone said that maybe we were all a bit like those blind men when trying to locate the end of the global flood in the rock record.
This got me thinking and wondering if just like those blind men we are seeing just one part of the whole picture. In other words, we focus on a few pieces of evidence which interest us and think that is indicative of the end of the flood. The problem may be that there is in fact no discrete end to the flood, rather there are different phases over a period of time longer than a few months or years: water draining off the land, drying, partial transgressions of the sea onto the land as mountains rise and valley falls, tectonic movements due to spreading of the ocean floor. Another factor is the possibility of true polar wandering which doesn’t get mentioned much, but which could explain some of the geological features that are difficult to explain by classical plate tectonic models.
Over the past 30 years or more all the efforts to pin down the end of the flood have failed to come up with a discrete end of the flood which convinces everyone. Maybe we need to change tack and look for a more continuous ending over a period of time.
Part of this process would involve a synthesis of all the geological and paleontological data together with a rigorous analysis of the biblical texts with relevance to the cataclysm commonly known as the flood.
The story goes that six blind men examined an elephant and came up with six very different descriptions of what an elephant is. Their observations were completely accurate, however, none of them accurately described the elephant. They failed because they focused on one part of the elephant, such as the tail, tusk, trunk, ear and leg.
During the ICC in July, 2023, someone said that maybe we were all a bit like those blind men when trying to locate the end of the global flood in the rock record.
This got me thinking and wondering if just like those blind men we are seeing just one part of the whole picture. In other words, we focus on a few pieces of evidence which interest us and think that is indicative of the end of the flood. The problem may be that there is in fact no discrete end to the flood, rather there are different phases over a period of time longer than a few months or years: water draining off the land, drying, partial transgressions of the sea onto the land as mountains rise and valley falls, tectonic movements due to spreading of the ocean floor. Another factor is the possibility of true polar wandering which doesn’t get mentioned much, but which could explain some of the geological features that are difficult to explain by classical plate tectonic models.
Over the past 30 years or more all the efforts to pin down the end of the flood have failed to come up with a discrete end of the flood which convinces everyone. Maybe we need to change tack and look for a more continuous ending over a period of time.
Part of this process would involve a synthesis of all the geological and paleontological data together with a rigorous analysis of the biblical texts with relevance to the cataclysm commonly known as the flood.
