After the flood, God provided Noah’s descendants with a new world to inhabit; yet instead of obeying His directive to “fill the earth”, they decided instead to huddle together at Babel and create their own language instead, leading to worldwide dialect confusion and an eventual failure of communication between cultures.
God never again brought destruction upon the cosmos in a massive global flood; instead, he will unleash localized floods as punishment for specific areas of sinful activity.
1. Propagation
God gave Adam instructions to be fruitful and multiply as part of His plan to restore balance to the world after Adam had committed sin; He knew people would need to populate Earth again to bring about this effect.
Noah’s sons were given similar roles after the Flood: to “be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth and subdue it,” as God instructed them. Each of these men took three wives each as they filled out this new world with life – something the Bible verifies by recording that their efforts succeeded.
After they left the Ark, one of their first acts upon arriving on dry land was to build an altar – this first reference in Scripture! Noah may have offered some of his clean animals as thanks for making it through the flood and starting fresh on dry land.
This passage offers several fascinating details. First and foremost, it serves as an indication that the Flood was global in scope: according to Genesis 8:4-5 and other texts, waters stayed on Earth for 74 days after entering from their place of origin, suggesting it had global reach rather than local implications. Furthermore, as Genesis 8:4-5 records it, waters began receding back so mountains could once more be seen (another telltale sign this global Flood wasn’t local).
Shem, Ham and Japheth’s three wives may have come from pre-Flood populations – it could even have been siblings who married each other as many lived long lives prior to the Flood – some reaching 500+ years and Methuselah reaching nearly 900! As for their descendants who married them afterward – such as Methuselah reaching nearly 900! – this can only be assumed from what was found in scripture.
These long life spans enabled a higher population to be produced and dispersed across the new world, eventually beginning to repopulate it and restore equilibrium – something which the Bible references in Revelation 21-22 as being part of God’s plan to restore his cosmos back to its former glory.
2. Natural Selection
While the biblical account of Noah’s flood contains many inaccuracies, one aspect that stands out is God’s clear command to gather two of each species of animal onto Noah’s Ark. This instruction included both clean and unclean creatures alike – birds included! Furthermore, no specific exceptions were listed – making this command inclusive to all animal life on earth.
Creationists claim that animals surviving the flood would have evolved within their own kinds afterward, yet this argument is dubious. Intrakind evolution is both slow and inefficient compared to the forces of natural selection that operate today, as well as frontloaded genes containing hidden traits being passed along during reproduction; for example if both ram and ewe carried recessive genes for dark skin color then breeding would produce an abundance of dark-skinned lambs.
Furthermore, had these animals interbred, then the descendants of Noah may have intermarried with each other as well. There were various ways this might have happened: for instance, Shem and Ham may have married their brothers’ wives pre-Flood; or their son Japheth might have married his siblings without any issues as intermarriage among close relatives was considered permissible (Genesis 9:20).
One reason that mixing of descendants occurred before the flood is due to increased longevity before this event; some patriarchs lived over 900 years! Their longevity allowed for their descendants to have many grandchildren, leading to different races and types of people being formed; it should also be noted that taking literally to what has been written about the flood narrative necessitates interbreeding of all descendants as well.
3. Cultural Preferences
God gave mankind two commands from Him in Genesis 1:19-34 to “multiply and fill the earth”. By multiply, this refers to producing families through marriage; from one family to the next cultural traits are passed along and transmitted, and so when Noah’s descendants started multiplying they began developing various cultures; some differences may include skin color or physical characteristics while many involve language, food, art and religion activities as cultural markers.
The Bible presents us with a dramatic global flood that washed over all forms of animals, birds and people not aboard Noah’s Ark (Genesis 6:17). Today we can still find fossilized remains of these animals throughout rock layers worldwide – correlating with a global Flood scenario.
Some preachers assert that the Flood was local based on what is often imagined to have been an imagined limited area of human habitation at that time. This argument, however, ignores Scripture; those living on its periphery would have moved higher ground just as people do today when storms threaten; birds can cover several hundred kilometers a day so would not have been restricted to an area flooded during any local Flood event.
Furthermore, the Bible records that God forbade his sons to marry any daughters of humanity; nonetheless they did marry several (Genesis 6:4) despite His express orders to do otherwise, showing that its effects were truly widespread.
After the Flood subsided and eight survivors disembarked from the Ark, they could eat anything that moved (Genesis 9:3) including fish and “moving things that live”. While at first this may have meant eating green plants primarily, over time this likely changed as generations progressed, likely helped by living near water sources with abundant supplies of fish and wild creatures such as mammals and amphibians.
4. Isolation
The Bible makes it crystal-clear that every living thing, including animals, died in the Flood except Noah and his family. Furthermore, its impact was global rather than local in scope – Genesis 1 uses the term eretz to refer to our planet itself – meaning all animals would have perished; which explains why God saved two of each species so they can repopulate earth through reproduction and reproduction.
The Ark arrived in modern Turkey and Central Asia. At that time, its waters reached some of the highest mountains worldwide – according to Genesis’ account of the Flood, these waters reached 15 cubits above sea level at one time – covering Mount Everest today as well. Mount Everest contains marine fossils which indicate it was once above sea level!
Psalm 104:8-9 provides evidence that some of the water subsided through evaporation. It cannot have receded through multiple cycles of flooding and drying over a period of months or years as has often been suggested – this would have caused irreparable topographical changes such as sinking ocean beds and the formation of new mountains.
That leaves only one question – how could Noah’s small family populate all of earth after the Flood? One possible explanation is through intermarriage between close family members post-Flood. Many CMI resources discuss why this approach was moral and genetically sound.
Possible theories suggest that those who survived the Flood began migrating around the globe, taking advantage of natural selection and cultural bias to form various races today – all descended from those living aboard the ark.
