Noah had technology

[Emower]

The circumference of the Earth is very nearly 40 000 km. The Earth is very nearly spherical, so that gives a radius of 6 360 km, therefore a volume of 1.077 x 10^12 km^3. A sphere that would cover all the land on Earth would have a radius of 6 370 km, therefore a volume of 1.083 x 10^12 km^3. A Deluge would be comprised of filling the space between the smaller and larger spheres with water --- 6 x 10^9 km^3 of water. That is 6 x 10^18 m^3, or 6 x 10^21 L (or for those stuck in mediaeval times that must still use gallons, 1.58 x 10^21 gal).

1 L of water has a mass of approximately 1 kg. Therefore, 6 x 10^21 L of water would have a mass of 6 x 10^21 kg, or about one thousandth of the mass of the entire Earth. That water would exert a pressure of 10 km H2O, 968 atm, or 98.1 MPa (or for those stuck in mediaeval times that must still use those antiquated units, 14223 lb / in^2). Determining the effects of such colossal pressure on plant matter and soil is left as an exercise for the reader, as is determining where this water came from and whither it went.

N.B.: I was somewhat cavalier with significant digits here, but I generally rounded to three, except in the case of the volumes, where I rounded to four.

Wouldnt you need to subtract the volume of the mountain ranges that stick up into the larger sphere? That will totally prove its possibility...

[LSOF]

The circumference of the Earth is very nearly 40 000 km. The Earth is very nearly spherical, so that gives a radius of 6 360 km, therefore a volume of 1.077 x 10^12 km^3. A sphere that would cover all the land on Earth would have a radius of 6 370 km, therefore a volume of 1.083 x 10^12 km^3. A Deluge would be comprised of filling the space between the smaller and larger spheres with water --- 6 x 10^9 km^3 of water. That is 6 x 10^18 m^3, or 6 x 10^21 L (or for those stuck in mediaeval times that must still use gallons, 1.58 x 10^21 gal).

1 L of water has a mass of approximately 1 kg. Therefore, 6 x 10^21 L of water would have a mass of 6 x 10^21 kg, or about one thousandth of the mass of the entire Earth. That water would exert a pressure of 10 km H2O, 968 atm, or 98.1 MPa (or for those stuck in mediaeval times that must still use those antiquated units, 14223 lb / in^2). Determining the effects of such colossal pressure on plant matter and soil is left as an exercise for the reader, as is determining where this water came from and whither it went.

N.B.: I was somewhat cavalier with significant digits here, but I generally rounded to three, except in the case of the volumes, where I rounded to four.

Wouldnt you need to subtract the volume of the mountain ranges that stick up into the larger sphere? That will totally prove its possibility...

If I wanted the most accurate answer possible, then yes. However, the volume of the mountain ranges is complicated to calculate and ultimately negligible anyway, when compared with the volume of the whole Earth.

[Corsair]

The circumference of the Earth is very nearly 40 000 km. The Earth is very nearly spherical, so that gives a radius of 6 360 km, therefore a volume of 1.077 x 10^12 km^3. A sphere that would cover all the land on Earth would have a radius of 6 370 km, therefore a volume of 1.083 x 10^12 km^3. A Deluge would be comprised of filling the space between the smaller and larger spheres with water --- 6 x 10^9 km^3 of water. That is 6 x 10^18 m^3, or 6 x 10^21 L (or for those stuck in mediaeval times that must still use gallons, 1.58 x 10^21 gal).

1 L of water has a mass of approximately 1 kg. Therefore, 6 x 10^21 L of water would have a mass of 6 x 10^21 kg, or about one thousandth of the mass of the entire Earth. That water would exert a pressure of 10 km H2O, 968 atm, or 98.1 MPa (or for those stuck in mediaeval times that must still use those antiquated units, 14223 lb / in^2). Determining the effects of such colossal pressure on plant matter and soil is left as an exercise for the reader, as is determining where this water came from and whither it went.

N.B.: I was somewhat cavalier with significant digits here, but I generally rounded to three, except in the case of the volumes, where I rounded to four.

You just had to summon the engineers. According to the US Geologic Survey Water Science School There is 1.39 x 10^9 cubic kilometers of water on earth. At 264 gallons per cubic meter that is 1.386 x 10^21 L (3.67 x 10^20 gallons) of water on earth and most of that is saline ocean water.

But you said we needed 6 x 10^21 L of water for the flood and that is 4.3 times more than all the water on the earth. Realize that this is in addition to the existing ocean by filling up starting at sea level. The mountains are not going to make much of a dent in that since Mt. Everest is shorter than the Marianas Trench and oceans are 71% of Earth's surface.

I realize that we are applying far more engineering than a myth can handle. It long ago entered the realm of miracles and magic. I feel compelled that "Game of Thrones" has more impact on my personal values than Genesis 8.

[moksha]

That water wormhole is as good of apologetics as any other in furnishing a highly improbable explanation for something that was otherwise impossible. That same wormhole could have returned much later and funneled all remnants of the Nephite civilization back to that same sacrificial waterworld (except for the NHM references to New Horder Mormon).

[Corsair]

That water wormhole is as good of apologetics as any other in furnishing a highly improbable explanation for something that was otherwise impossible. That same wormhole could have returned much later and funneled all remnants of the Nephite civilization back to that same sacrificial waterworld (except for the NHM references to New Horder Mormon).

The problem of scale balloons from this kind of apologetic. If it is possible to transport 6 x 10^21 L of water for the flood, then why not just give a heart attack to everyone over age 8 or have a plague that kills humans except Noah and his family? Yes, God is supposed to be all powerful, but we haven't touched a dozen other big problems with dumping water equal to 4.3 times more than all the water on Earth. Was it salt water but didn't kill all the fresh water fish and amphibians? Was it fresh water and somehow didn't kill the salt water plants and animals? How did terrestrial plants survive a year of colossal over-watering? How did all the animals fit on the ark? Who was on daily poop removal duty? How did they keep a years worth of food for a breeding pair of elephats? How did the lions, tigers, and bears not eat all the prey animals? It's just crazy miracle piled on crazy miracle one after another.

Finally, your literalist Sunday School and Seminary teacher (and Ken Ham and Kent Hovind) has reached some stable end to this massive apologetic. But we then find that ancient people simply did not take stories like this literally in the same way that a post-enlightenment society would see history in a literal sense. This is actually one of the brilliant points of the "Book of Mormon" musical when the missionaries discover that the people of Uganda didn't take any of Elder Cunningham's stories literally at all either. Leave Genesis 8 as a story and stop trying to make it real.

[Hagoth]

The standard fallback answer is that the "fountains of the deep" were opened, so there must be a lot of water underground. Now that we have a pretty clear idea of the structure of the earth, because of the way seismic waves travel through materials of different densities, that one no longer ( ) holds water.
What the flood story does tell us is that the biblical authors had a very primitive understanding of the cosmos. They lived on a flat earth, and the sky was a dome, onto which celestial objects were attached. The entire thing was surrounded by a cosmic ocean. The Bible tells us that God simply opened literal floodgates and windows to let the water in.

This image has been misused by LDS prophets who treat the phrase "windows of heaven" as a metaphor for blessings. But no, it is a reference to literal windows.

I find it very entertaining when elaborate apologetics are used to explain simple myths. Meridian Magazine addressed the problem of how kangaroos and penguins made the two-way trip to and from the ark by claiming that angels carried them. OK, so why do you need an ark if angels can just levitate all of the animals?

I once had a discussion with Mrs. Hagoth about the problems of living for a year in a Jaredite barge with livestock, and all of the food and water that would be required. She offered that maybe God did something to accelerate time for them or that he put them into some kind of suspended animation for the duration of the voyage. My response was, "well, if He was just going to use magic anyway, why build boats at all? Why not just transport them across the ocean, the way Jesus got there in 3rd Nephi?"

[Emower]

Personally I think the Earth's rotation increased such that centrifugal force raised the levels of the ocean such that everything was inundated. Totes coulda worked.

[moksha]

Leave Genesis 8 as a story and stop trying to make it real.

Can you imagine how frustrating it would be for the FAIRMormon group if they also had to supply apologetic explanations for the Brothers Grimm and Mother Goose stories? Not to say that they couldn't string together some compelling proofs that spiders are attracted to curds and whey, but it would just add to their overall burden.

Can you imagine Aaronic priesthood groups re-enacting the Scrub-a-Dub-Dub Three Men in a Tub scene every summer just like Trek?

[1smartdodog]

My BIL is convinced that the ark was filled with DNA samples and the technology to grow animals from said samples. Yikes.

That's every bit as plausible as the original ark story: millions of species of animals, reptiles & insects on a wooden boat built by one guy and maybe two of his kids without power tools or a dry dock.

More plausible I think

[Just This Guy]

You just had to summon the engineers.

Hey, Engineers are sexy. At least DW says that we are.


Something else to consider is that there are trees older than flood would have been.

Most Christian scholars put the flood somewhere around 2300 BC, 4300 years ago. There are three tree know to be older that that. They are all Great Basin Bristlecone Pines located in California and Nevada. There are additional trees throughout the world of a similar age, but their age is being debated. None of these trees show any evidence of a massive flood.

Additionally, these trees that are able to live for so long, their remains after they die can last equally as long doe to the properties of the wood and the climate they grow in. There are tree remains that are dated to over 7000 years ago, in theory they are as old as the whole world is according to the bible. Again, they show no evidence of a flood.

[Enoch Witty]

Being a liberal Mormon who never questioned evolution, I always explained the absurdity of the Noah story by thinking that there were far fewer animals back then than there are now, and evolution is why we have so many more today. This has its own problems, of course, but it's interesting to me that the church discourages belief in evolution (without outright decrying it, at least for the last few decades) when evolution can explain so much about how God works.

[Thoughtful]

Being a liberal Mormon who never questioned evolution, I always explained the absurdity of the Noah story by thinking that there were far fewer animals back then than there are now, and evolution is why we have so many more today. This has its own problems, of course, but it's interesting to me that the church discourages belief in evolution (without outright decrying it, at least for the last few decades) when evolution can explain so much about how God works.

How quickly do they think things evolve??