# Help me picture the Biblical Flood. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 14, 2010, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-picture-the-biblical-flood/528993 "2010-02-14T21:14:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-picture-the-biblical-flood/528993/21 "2010-02-15T02:51:30Z")
> [@Bartman](#): > > In the world we have the flood could not work, at least not according to the rules of physics. If God did it he cheated. In the real world, we aren’t floating in a great body of water. So all that water would have to come from outside. And if that much water falls it would raise the temperature of the surface of the Earth by about 1500° C. Just about all rocks melt at or below 1200° C, so the surface of the earth would all be molten. Creationists still believe there was a canopy. It just covered a spherical Earth. They say the canopy was like a second ozone layer, which is part of the reason for the longevity of the individuals mentioned in Genesis. (The other being the atmosphere boiling you already mentioned. They claim that the concentration of oxygen was at least twice as high. As for my opinion: you’ve got to remember that this is pre-Babel. All the humans are in one place. There’s no reason for a flood that’s designed to kill off all the humans to cover the entire planet. Only the _human_ world need be destroyed. ETA: Here’s a (apparently Creationist) site I found while trying to see how long Noah takes to build the Ark (less than 100 years): [What are some of the most common questions about Noah’s Ark? | GotQuestions.org](http://www.gotquestions.org/Noahs-ark-questions.html) ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-picture-the-biblical-flood/528993/22 "2010-02-15T03:14:07Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:16, topic:528993”] How do you figure that? [/QUOTE] Simply enough. I cribbed it from [here](http://www.deusdiapente.net/science/flood.php). If the water is falling to Earth it is exchanging potential energy for kinetic energy which is then converted into heat when it hits. This is far more heat than the Earth can radiate within the 40 days+nights bit. That author assumes that enough water is added to the surface to cover Mt Everest + 15 cubits (the depth listed in Genesis). The author also assumes that the water came from the high Troposhere (about 10 miles up). All the rest is math. > [@](#): > > Or that? Even if adding a few miles of water on top of the Earth’s surface pushed the atmosphere up a few miles, we would lose a pretty insignificant amount of air. I cribbed this from the same place. 2/3rds of the atmosphere (by weight) lies below the elevation of Everest. So you would push all the atmosphere up by 5.5 miles. But looking at it I way over spoke. There would be increased atmospheric loss (there is atmospheric loss occurring right now after all). And it would be increased, but not by any significant amount. Not in the less than a year kinda time frame. So consider it withdrawn. ---
**Author:** ![LiveOnAPlane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@LiveOnAPlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveOnAPlane)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-picture-the-biblical-flood/528993/23 "2010-02-15T05:32:26Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:15, topic:528993”] … What I can’t see is one dude with his kids constructing a boat big enough to hold two of every non-aquatic species of animal, plus enough food to keep them all alive until the boat landed and new crops (and prey animals) grown. It would have taken a gigantic barge behind the ark just to carry a year’s worth of hay for the hay-eaters. [/QUOTE] Interesting coincidence; I just finished a SF/Fantasy story which mentioned this. Seens that the inside of the ark was bigger than the outside. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-picture-the-biblical-flood/528993/24 "2010-02-15T07:08:50Z")
> [@Sapo](#): > > Assuming fresh water so the land is not salted (it was rain after all), would some trees manage to spring back to life after a 40 days immersion? After 40 days… _maybe_ but I doubt any would still have leaves or fruit. After 150 days, I really doubt it. After the Flood, God gives Noah permission to start eating animals, presumably because the land was not yet suitable for growing crops and all the plants had been devastated: > [@](#): > > The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. On the other hand, the dove returned with an olive branch (which I assume had leaves on it) so… I dunno. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-picture-the-biblical-flood/528993.md?page=1)