The Genesis Cataclysm. W. Joseph Stallings
Flood is self-affirming of its historical nature. While scholars may attempt to refute the historicity of the biblical Flood on empirical and extra-biblical grounds, it is a pointless endeavor to claim that the intention of the scriptural revelation is not to present the Deluge as an actual, factual event.7 As Richard M. Davidson8 states:
[W]e must note the evidences within the biblical account affirming the historical nature of the Flood. In the literary structure of the Flood story, the genealogical frame or envelope construction (Genesis 5:32 and 9:28–29) plus the secondary genealogies (Genesis 6:9–10 and 9:18–19) are indicators that the account is intended to be factual history. The use of the genealogical term toledot ([Hebrew for] ‘generations,” “account”) in the Flood story (6:9) as throughout Genesis (13 times, structuring the whole book), indicates that the author intended this story to be as historically veracious as the rest of Genesis. Walter Kaiser analyzes the literary form of Genesis 1–11 and concludes that this whole section of Genesis must be taken as “historical narrative prose” . . . [Furthermore] The historical occurrence of the Flood is part of the saving/judging acts of God, and its historicity is assumed and essential to the theological arguments of later biblical writers employing Flood typology.9
He concludes: “Thus according to the biblical writers, far from being a non-historical, symbolical, or mythical account written only to teach theological truths, the Flood narrative is intended to accurately record a real, literal, historical event.”10 We concur with Davidson that the Noahic Flood, as recorded in Scripture, was a divine event set in human space-time history.
Having said that, there are those—even some who are professing evangelicals purported to have a conservative theological bent, such as Francisco—who claim that the Noahic text should not be modernly interpreted as it appears plainly written. According to this view, the narrative was simply given as somewhat of an emblematic story (probably itself derived from “correspondencies between the Hebrew and Babylonian stories” which are likely “based upon a common antecedent,”11 whether that antecedent was an even older story or group of stories, or an actual prior local flood event or series of local events that occurred over time, or some sort of combination of the above) which the author embedded with a (hyperbolic) Hebrew extremism literary device (i.e., in this case, by crafting it into a worldwide event) to clearly make a much stronger “moral of the story” point. In this light, Francisco states just how he perceives the real truth to be:
The biblical account does not [really] demand the interpretation that every foot of the earth be covered with water any more than the statement in Acts 2:5, that there were in Jerusalem “devout men from every nation under heaven,” claims that even men from America were there! Just as Acts declares that men were there from all the civilized world, the essential claim in Genesis 6 is that the water covered all the inhabited earth.12
Francisco’s assertion could possibly pass some degree of logical muster if it were not for, at least, one small feature in the Noahic text: that is, the important depth detail in Genesis 7:20—”the waters prevailed above the mountains covering them from fifteen cubits deep.” Mind you, not fourteen nor sixteen; not ten nor twenty; not greatly nor deeply nor barely, but fifteen. While we concur that the Acts 2 text (which is also historical narrative prose) does indeed utilize a Hebrew extremism device in order to make an emphatic point,13 the comparison of the two texts is not an equal one and thus essentially presents a strawman argument. It would have been much more appropriate to compare the Noahic text with, say, the passage in John 21, specifically verse 11—“So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three of them.” Mind you, not a hundred and fifty-two nor a hundred and fifty-four; not a hundred and fifty; not just a boatload or a lot or a few, but a hundred and fifty-three. These seemingly inconsequential details in the story are really not so inconsequential. Completely aside from any presumed emphatic points to be made, or from any interpretation of the meanings of these passages whatsoever, both of these texts present their details with a very narrow specificity for one reason and one reason alone: because they each chronicle exactly what happened. Not only did Peter and his fellow fishermen catch a whole lot of fish, but they caught 153 of them (and even “large” ones, no less). Likewise, not only did the Noahic Flood cover every foot of the planet Earth including the highest peaks (which alone is self-affirming that every foot of the ground was indeed already covered), but it covered those highest peaks to a depth of 15 cubits (which is the equivalent of 22.5 feet in our modern English system of measurement). We contend that these are both cases of precise detail and narrow specificity designating actual history.14
Meanwhile, in a vein of thought similar to that of Francisco (above), yet presented in the form of a notable hybridic variation of the symbolic view, Longman and Walton agree that the Noahic text is indeed fully intended to present a worldwide Flood event. However, in their understanding, the Mosaic author was actually using rhetorical language with graphic imagery—not because it actually happened that way—but because anything other than a dramatic universal Flood presentation would not have the necessary impact to effectively communicate the desired theological truth.15 In this line of thinking, the historicity (or degree of historicity) of the Flood is not essentially important; it is rather the deeper theological message that really matters.16 The reality of its actual occurrence is, at best, secondary—perhaps even irrelevant.
Of course, the problem with these sorts of postulations is that if the event portrayed is removed from (or even diminished within) history, then perhaps the theological truth can be removed (or, at least, greatly diminished) as well. In fact, John Warwick Montgomery17 speaks forcefully of such a divorce: “History can be removed from Christian theology only by the total destruction of theology itself.”18 The vital implication is that the truth of both history and theology would be mutually eradicated by their severance. The occurrence of the biblical events in general history is the bedrock of their theological truth. It is our firm conviction that the Judeo-Christian reality is an actual reality because it is indeed fully set in space-time. We believe that one of the most important features of the Hebrew-Christian scriptures is that they purport to place its recorded events in some form of actual historic geochronology. This is the very reason that the Bible regularly includes—squarely in the midst of its proclaimed theological and spiritual precepts—certain personal and historical details on its sacred pages. The point of the details is to substantiate that the particular thing recorded really happened. The mighty acts and lessons of God and our respondent faith and life as set in actual time and place are as fleshy real as it gets. The efficacy of the faith itself—as well as the authenticity of its theological teaching—is deeply rooted in its historical truth.19 The two—history and theology—are not in conflict nor disconnected from one another, but are, in fact, necessarily commensurate. In the case of the Noahic Flood, it is presented in the Bible as a purposeful divine action that occurred in the form of a specific event on Earth and at a specific time on Earth. Its factual historicity, in every possible sense of the word, is crucial to its theological and spiritual relevance. As Davidson so aptly avers:
The Genesis Flood narrative presents profound theology. But this theology is always rooted in history. Any attempt to separate theology and history in the biblical narratives does so by imposing an external norm, such as Greek dualism, upon the text. Read on its own terms, the biblical narratives, including the Flood narrative, defy attempts to read them as nonhistorical theology.20
Still following Davidson, yet forcefully pushing a step further, we aver that the biblical narratives even defy attempts to read them as merely some form of semi-historical theology (viz., having some mere kernel of historical truth deeply hidden somewhere beneath the many layers of developed fable and allegory). To diminish the historicity of the Flood in any way is to also dissipate its deeper truth in every way.21
There are other such biblical texts as well upon which hinge major theological truth. Imagine, for instance, the illegitimacy of Christian soteriology and eschatology if the New Testament records of the incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and coming consummation of Christ were merely considered to be a rhetorical and figurative storyline. Think about it: What would be the ramifications if the writers of the four Gospels intended for the resurrection of Christ narrative to be some form of hyperbole? As Montgomery again