Did it never rain on earth before Noah's flood?

hey guys just wondering...isnt it possible that the flood didnt actually cover the whole world but the whole of the then 'civilised' world...i doubt the entire planet to have been habited at that point in history

I think that this has been contemplated/debated many times that the whole earth was not covered.

But no rain before Noah?

And this has been going on for billions (not millions; not thousands) of years.

billions byrd? how old is the earth? ive read 4 billion yrs

4 billion is billions, I think!

I was talking to my friend last night and she was saying that she had read somewhere where the thought was that not only did this water (from the canopy that emcompassed the earth) from the sky come down to the earth so fast that it caused tsunami's that went around the earth, coast to coast, back and forth and that it lasted for years.

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Cherish, I have also read up that there was not rain before the flood. Many Lutheran teachings say that the earth was relatively warm and there were mists so to speak but not actual rain. I can't say I am really sure about this either as it does seem odd but I cannot find in the bible where it can be supported or denied. Maybe some bible scholars on this site might be able to help us.

Notice how the scriptures mention the first rainbow right after the Great Flood. It takes sheets of rain and direct sun light to produce a natural rainbow. Sea mist can produce a subtle rainbow effect but without the direct sun rays there is no way to see the multiple colors from white sun rays. Something above in the atmosphere diffused the sun's rays before the Flood.

Yeah I remember that rainbow thing,it was the like the reminder of the pact between God and Noah saying that he will never destroy the world with flood. This has always been a scary thought to people because God only mentioned Flood not like Asteriod or anything else that could end humanity.

Originally posted by Cherish
4 billion is billions, I think!

I was talking to my friend last night and she was saying that she had read somewhere where the thought was that not only did this water (from the canopy that emcompassed the earth) from the sky come down to the earth so fast that it caused tsunami's that went around the earth, coast to coast, back and forth and that it lasted for years.

"...And all the springs of the vast watery deep broke open and then the floodgates from heaven fell."

A large asteriod hit on one side of the planet (opposite the Ark) and then giant tsunamis pushed out from the impact site engulfing everything in their wave. The excessive debri or pressure change disrupted the canopy's state and then condensed to a liquid and fell. (This would have to be partially supernatural because it is said that that much volume of water falling would release so much energy that the oceans would boil.)

All of these conclusion some of you are coming to are mostly suggesting that there was indeed another layer of our atmosphere and how it could have been destroyed. well from what i remember in my science lessons the atmosphere is two parts... the troposphere and stratosphere. The first layer is around 7 miles above the earth's surface and is more dense than the stratosphere that is around 30 miles above our surface. gravity is the reason why the atmosphere gets less dense as it gets further from our surface. my question is where abouts was this other layer that got destroyed, also think about how much water it needed to reach even 1 or 2 miles high all around the earth.

Here's some facts about water....

There is an estimated 325 million cubic miles of water covering our surface, which includes the water that is frozen.
Each cubic mile is equal 1 trillion gallons, so i won't even attempt to work out the total amount of 325 million cubic miles in to gallons.
At any one time there is around 3,100 cubic miles in the form of water vapour/clouds, which if fell as precipitation at one time would cover the entire world a mere 1 inch high.
Lets say that 1 inch equals 3 cm and 33 of 3 cm we'll make it 1 meter.
that would mean to cover the earth is just one meter around 100,000 cubic miles of precipitation all falling at once.
1 mile is equal to 1600 meters, so to cover the earth 1 mile high of rain would take 160 million cubic miles of water to fall at once.
therefore the extra layer could not have been more than 2 miles high because that would take 380 million cubic miles of water to fall at once.
i also read on here people think i can go see noah's ark resting on mt ararat which summit reaches 5000 meters. well if all the water in the world can reach less than 3200 then i don't think you will noah's boat on the summit.
my conclusion is it's impossible for that amount of rainfall to happen, not even with the hand of god could that much fall in a day, the water cycle is what it is and doesnt suddenly think right today we're going to evaporate 160 million cubic miles and make it all fall at once.

[edit on 27-1-2005 by shaunybaby]

Shauny, I think you are oversimplifying the power of rain. If one inch of rain were to all everywhere at one time, that would be devastating. Do you not see what happens when 7 inches of rain falls in one place at one time? The river does not just raise 7 inches.

I don't understand it much myself, but it seems you made it out to be too simple.

lol floods only happen like that when a river over flows because it floods places that are below sea level. what i was saying is that basically with the water on the planet it's impossible for a flood of that magnitude. i think you should look in to rainfall, floods, rivers etc before you start trying to disprove what i say.

what i was saying is that this flood, which in the bible states is world wide at least half of the water on earth would need to be in the sky at one time, and all fall at one time, which would be impossible. im not on about 7 inches of rain falling in one place, a river over flowing and flooding a town...im on about a worldwide flood so capable that noah needs to build a boat and save all the animals. how about you get some facts, and some kind of knowledge before you start saying what i said was bulls**t.

also my example is too simplistic for you... sorry but here i am thinking the bible itself maybe is the most simple book ever written as the context could be understood by a 5 year old. for a simplistic example as a world wide flood, noah building a boat to hold 2 of every animal, i think for something like that i should be able to give a simple answer when infact my answer is anything but that simple...alot of facts/evidence show it's impossible for a flood of that magnitude... so i'm not aloud to state why in a simple way, yet in the bible you take the word of it to be 100% truth even though it goes in to no detail at all about how he got millions of animals round up.

[edit on 27-1-2005 by shaunybaby]

[edit on 27-1-2005 by shaunybaby]

No, no, I'm not insulting you, as you seem to try to do back to me. I think that if an inch of rain were to fall around the world at one time, that it would not just add an inch of water to every place. As you just said, places below sea level would have flooding rivers. Well, if you add those flooding rivers to the inch everywhere else, then it would be catastrophic. Also, I was not trying to verify the Bible. Did you see any mention of the word Bible in my post? I was only saying that you are simplifying the results of an inch of rain falling around the world at one time. I think that it would be catastrophic, but that's my view on it. Hey, you brought up the one inch falling at one time.

well an inch of water wouldn't be very bad and im sure animals don't need to be saved from one inch of rain. you can simplify it down to there cannot be enough rainfall to create a world wide flood like that, noah's boat to supposedly end up on mt ararat meant the flood would need to be very high.

thing is when 7 inches of rain falls in a town thats below sea level it will flood because a river near overflows etc. but on a world wide scale it doesnt really matter about rivers overflowing because there needs to be around 1 mile high of water covering the planet for a flood like noah's.

im just trying to put some facts along the story of noah, facts and logic that continue to proove it was an impossibility yet some people take the noah story as 100% truth and literal.

A few days ago i watched a show on the National Geographic channel that talked about how water came to earth. Newer theories suggest that the water we have on our planet came from comet bombarments on the earth around 200,000 years after it was created. Original thoughts were that water did not begin to form on the earth until around 800,000 years or later after it was formed. The comets were left over debris from a super nova star that is said to have originally set the wheels in motion for the creation of the earth, about 4.55 billion years ago. Although some of this is being disputed as the comets that, so far, have been catalogued only contained the compounds of hard water ( might have been soft water i cant remember). But the scientists conducting the experiments are content in their belief that there are many comets out there, still, that contain the soft water (in ice form) needed to make the water we have today.

"i like that idea of it raining for years to fill up the oceans. did you never do science in school buddy?? how can it rain without first being water to be evaporated and then to condense only then to be released as rain. if you say god made it rain first then you prety much are saying there is no water cycle. for the water cycle to be true the water has to go round and round, yet you're saying that out of the blue all of this water fell to earth...impossible even by gods standards. "

Also in the same show it talked about this. This is all in theory of course. And is what was originally thought about water on earth. There were water particles within the iron. At the very first stages of the earth being created it was nothing more then particles from the super nova of star that collected into a huge mass of rock. Throughout the many years the earth orbited the sun it banged into other large entities, which in turn created an even larger mass. After the earth had formed it was conttinously bombarded by meteor after meteor, this made the heat of the earth so hot it became a molten ball of liquid. When this was happening all the iron sunk to the centre of the earth. This in turn formed the iron core the earth has today that gives it, its' magnetic field. Within the iron there were certain particles of water (cant remember the name. it was like H2O8 or something). When the iron went towards the centre it left these particles near the surface. These particles remained near the surface and dispersed. Many Many years of acidic rain followed, until the cycle began to filter out some of the abnormalities, thus creating the water we have today.

Both these theories are theories and that is it. This is by no means what actually occured, but many scientists are leaning towards these two.

Going to try and find a linked about the show.

Here is the link. 9:00pm show "How the Earth was Born."

www.nationalgeographic.ca...

"All of these conclusion some of you are coming to are mostly suggesting that there was indeed another layer of our atmosphere and how it could have been destroyed. well from what i remember in my science lessons the atmosphere is two parts... the troposphere and stratosphere. The first layer is around 7 miles above the earth's surface and is more dense than the stratosphere that is around 30 miles above our surface. gravity is the reason why the atmosphere gets less dense as it gets further from our surface. my question is where abouts was this other layer that got destroyed, also think about how much water it needed to reach even 1 or 2 miles high all around the earth."

"Here's some facts about water....

There is an estimated 325 million cubic miles of water covering our surface, which includes the water that is frozen.
Each cubic mile is equal 1 trillion gallons, so i won't even attempt to work out the total amount of 325 million cubic miles in to gallons.
At any one time there is around 3,100 cubic miles in the form of water vapour/clouds, which if fell as precipitation at one time would cover the entire world a mere 1 inch high.
Lets say that 1 inch equals 3 cm and 33 of 3 cm we'll make it 1 meter.
that would mean to cover the earth is just one meter around 100,000 cubic miles of precipitation all falling at once.
1 mile is equal to 1600 meters, so to cover the earth 1 mile high of rain would take 160 million cubic miles of water to fall at once.
therefore the extra layer could not have been more than 2 miles high because that would take 380 million cubic miles of water to fall at once.
i also read on here people think i can go see noah's ark resting on mt ararat which summit reaches 5000 meters. well if all the water in the world can reach less than 3200 then i don't think you will noah's boat on the summit.
my conclusion is it's impossible for that amount of rainfall to happen, not even with the hand of god could that much fall in a day, the water cycle is what it is and doesnt suddenly think right today we're going to evaporate 160 million cubic miles and make it all fall at once."

Can you state for a fact that there was no phenomenon in biblical times to make water rise this high? If you answer yes to that then a) you are one very old man b) you are god c)you are bullsh*$ting me and everyone else here.

"another note: the earths axsis is tilted if it was'nt we would'nt have seasons does any1 have a date on when it did tilt this might link in then"

The Earths axis tilted to (i think 22 degrees) shortly after it was formed. it was also in the show.

Tahlen


[edit on 29-1-2005 by Tahlen]

so, before noah, water didn't evaporate ? clouds didn't exist in the sky ?



how do the plants get water ?
without plants, how do noahs animals feed ?

"I wonder if Noah was thirsty, all that water would make me want to pee a lot."

Forest Gump

Seriously though,

Maybe the great Ark was a mission from another place in the Universe. The story being passed down from generation to generation and the loss of technology over the ages; an ark and Noah was the easiest way to explain the story after several hundred years.

Just a thought

[edit on 29-1-2005 by IntelRetard]

Regarding whoever said that the entire earth was not covered, we are told in Genesis that the water covered the peaks of the highest mountains by--I think, but am not sure--10 cubits, or about fifteen feet. It could have been 20 though, I can't remember off the top of my head.

Originally posted by Cherish
iori_komei:
There are some theories that say the flood not only consisted of rain but....GIANT TSUNAMI'S.....could it be that we were hit by an asteroid or something?

www.kjvbible.org...
www.goldenageproject.org.uk...

No We've been hit by asteroids before (age of the dinosaurs.) It did land in water/ocean and it didn't sweep all life off the planet.

Originally posted by randyb
hey guys just wondering...isnt it possible that the flood didnt actually cover the whole world but the whole of the then 'civilised' world...i doubt the
entire planet to have been habited at that point in history

Yes, actually, it was well inhabited by the time of the presumed flood. Remember that we have an unbroken written timeline from before 3,000 BC and there are cities in India that are dated a lot earlier than that. Here in the states, there are Native American sites dated as far back as 20,000 years ago and along the California coast some very old Chumash sites (10,000 years ago or so) ... they lived there and were never washed away or buried underwater. I'm doing some research on a site that is dated to 5,000 years ago (I'm an anthropology student) and it hasn't been under water. Ever. It's high on a cliffside.