Was There Enough Water?

Some critics of a universal flood have claimed that sufficient water simply wasn't available to cover the mountains as the Bible describes. "And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered" (Genesis 7:19).

Scripture records that the "windows of heaven" were opened and it rained for 40 days and 40 nights (Genesis 7:4, 11). In addition, "all the fountains of the great deep were broken up" (verse 11). This appears to refer to subterranean aquifers, which were emptied—perhaps by tectonic upthrusting. Clearly enormous amounts of water became available rather suddenly.

One point about this objection is that it assumes the topography of the earth today is just as it appeared in Noah's time. This apparently is not so. Genesis 1:9 states that the waters of the earth (seas and oceans) were gathered in one place. Today the landmasses of the earth are scattered about its surface and all the seas are definitely not in one place. It may be that the current topography of our planet is at least partially the result of the tremendous geologic upheaval of a universal Flood.

A fascinating news item that received little attention appeared on the Nature magazine Web site March 8 (www.nature.com/nsu/020304/020304-10.html). "Geologists have divined water where you might least expect it: 1,000 kilometres below the Earth's surface," stated the report. "Here, rocks heated to over 1,000°C and squeezed under high pressures may harbour around five times as much water as in all the world's oceans" (emphasis added). It explained that a team of Japanese geologists had concluded that this enormous amount of water was locked up in the superheated, superpressurized molten minerals surrounding the earth's iron-rich core.

The conclusion that such an enormous amount of water exists trapped within the earth raises some intriguing possibilities in light of the Bible's statement that "the fountains of the great deep were broken up." GN