The windows of heaven were opened.
Which is just as easily explained as the sequence of "the fountains of the great deep broke forth, and the windows of heaven were opened" says, that the water came out of the ground, and much of it fell back to earth, "the windows of heaven were opened."
That's pretty much it for scripture.
Genesis 7:11–12. A lot of rain fell from somewhere. Genesis 7:11–12 states that “the floodgates of the sky were opened. And the rain fell ...” Doesn’t this imply a canopy?
Response: If it did, similar canopy interpretations should predate Vail’s in 1874. Where are they? Quite often it is hard to see alternatives once we have learned “the accepted explanation.”
Actually, Genesis 7:11–12 says that “all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened. And the rain fell ...” Later, Genesis 8:2 states “the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained.” These events were probably in cause-and-effect order. That is, the fountains of the great deep caused extreme, torrential rain. Once the fountains stopped, this violent rain ended. Then milder, more normal, rain fell. In other words, “the rain from the sky was restrained.”
A cause and effect sequence is also given in Proverbs 3:19–20: “The Lord by wisdom founded the Earth; by understanding He established the heavens. By His knowledge the deeps were broken up, and the skies dripped with dew.” The same Hebrew word, baqa ((qab@f), is used for “broken up” and “burst open” in Proverbs 3:20 and Genesis 7:11. Baqa describes a violent and complete splitting, sometimes of the Earth’s crust (Numbers 16:31, Micah 1:4, Zechariah 14:4). Isaiah 34:15 and 59:5 use baqa to describe the breaking of an egg shell by internal pressure as a baby bird exits. This aptly describes events of the hydroplate theory—the globe encircling rupture splitting the Earth’s crust by internal pressure and releasing fountains of water.
The Hebrew word, matar, means normal rain. Violent rain is geshem (used in Genesis 7:11 and 8:2). It is sometimes accompanied by high winds and huge hailstones that can destroy mortared walls (Ezekiel 13:11–13). The hydroplate theory (pages 118– 157) explains this sequence in more detailed, physical terms. We have failed to appreciate the explosiveness, magnitude, and power of “the fountains of the great deep.” [See “The Origin of Earth’s Radioactivity” on pages 391– 429.] |
And I think there are some forensic claims that are consistent with the idea of a canopy. Large organisms would benefit from a different mix of gases and higher pressures. A temperate worldwide climate is another.
From the same link above:
A Uniformly Warm Climate. “A canopy may have given the Earth a uniformly warm climate. This might explain why fossils of temperate animals and plants (such as dinosaurs and large trees) are found in Antarctica and on islands inside the Arctic Circle.”
Response: At the end of the flood, mountains were suddenly pushed up. This imbalanced (and rolled) the Earth, shifted the poles, and brought temperate regions to today’s polar regions. [For details see “Earth Roll” on page 141 and Endnote 84 on page 154.] Also, during the global flood, some plants and animals may have floated to today’s polar latitudes where they were later fossilized.
Even if a canopy produced a warm polar climate, it would not satisfy another requirement for lush vegetation— sunlight in the winter. Polar nights are six months long, and when the Sun does shine, it is always low in the sky. How could large trees and dinosaurs (requiring long food chains) survive, let alone thrive, during the long polar night?
Despite much speculation, no one knows what temperatures would exist under a canopy. Today, even experts disagree on the extent to which carbon dioxide warms the Earth. Think how much more difficult it is to determine the warming, thousands of years ago, under a canopy of unknown thickness, reflectivity, content, and height above the Earth. |
Even so, if it turns out there was no canopy there was definitely something very different about the pre flood atmosphere.
No argument there!
Question about the pressure build up that caused the waters to burst forth .....
How long would it take to build up that kind of pressure?
Here:
And:
The pre flood atmosphere could very well have had other factors that counteracted the greenhouse effect. We just don't know what it was like.
Not when a canopy would literally boil all life on earth. It would not be habitable.
We DO know that it was habitable. Even perfect, before the fall at least.
And, please, you don't have to mention "nowhere near enough to flood it" when discussing this topic with me. We both agree on that already as I've tried to make clear... repeatedly. I think every single sentence I talk about the canopy I make it clear. It sure would be nice not to have to mention it every single time just to save typing.
You're right. I'll try not to bring it up again.
It wouldn't need to build up. If the water were contained under a layer of the Earth's surface then it would be under pressure due to the weight of the earth above it. So long as the Earth was stable, so would the pressure be. To start the flood, all God had to do was uncork the bottle sort of speak, or, perhaps more accurately, allow the bottle to be uncorked.
I don't remember if I heard this from Bob on one of the RSR shows or the Flood seminar or somewhere else, but it's my understanding that the river that came out of the garden from the base of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (hereafter referred to as simply "the Tree"" and split into four rivers would have been a sort of relief valve for any excess pressure for the subterranean chambers -- a valve that would have eventually closed off due to the amount of growth of the roots of the other plants in the thereafter closed off garden, not the least of which would have been the Tree. Any water that would have made it up to the surface would have been immediately sucked up by the Tree, which would have caused the four rivers of the earth to dry up...
I doubt that God created the subterranean water super-critical.
Perhaps not, but I think it would have quickly become supercritical just simply due to the moon orbiting, causing tidal pumping, which WOULD cause pressure to build, simply by moving the subterranean water.
Any water would certainly be under some pressure, but not super heated, etc.
Which, as I mentioned above, could have been relieved by having the water be expelled up through the surface as the Garden's river's source.
According to the HPT, tidal pumping was the cause of that. It would take some time for the erosion of the crust ceiling and the mantle floor that lead to many other aspects of the floods results (vast amounts of limestone precursors, etc).
Indeed.
Ps 104 is thought by some to be speaking of the flood:
Psalms 104:6-8 (ESV) 6 You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. 7 At your rebuke they fled; at the sound of your thunder they took to flight. 8 The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them.
That sounds more like the creation of the crust and the formation of the dry land and seas than it does the flood.
The idea of a canopy is neither unbiblical nor unscientific.
It's not Biblical or scientific, either.
It's an untenable belief because of the evidence.
Biblically, the canopy could be what the windows of heaven refers to.
Which, as I said above, could just as easily be explained by the waters falling back to earth from the fountains of the deep.
There is room for different interpretations of that phrase.
Not really.
And scientifically, there should be answers for some of the anomalies we see from the preflood world. A canopy could answer some of those.
Not really.
And beyond that, the feasibility of a canopy, with the small amount of data we have, can not be ruled out.
Yes, it can be.
Has been.
And has largely been abandoned as a theory.
* ICR's Dr. John Morris on the Canopy: Hear also at 24:32 Dr. Morris regarding, "a huge canopy that covered the globe... we don't have the evidence, and the evidence we do have doesn't allow the canopy. If there were such a canopy, it would cause such a heat problem on the surface that it would be boiling temperature. Nothing could survive such a canopy. That's the problem... The more scientists have looked at that canopy theory, there are almost no creation scientists anymore who have studied it, who still hold to that traditional view of the canopy that was presented in [my father's book] The Genesis Flood... The Scripture doesn't say it. And the geological evidence doesn't support it." |
kgov.com
These two replies now brings up the question of whether God created the firmament (the crust) in a manner that it would eventually break under the pressure and flood the earth by natural means.
I think it's just that any substance God could use to make the crust would fail eventually under the right circumstances. I don't think he specifically made it TO fail in a certain way, but that He knew that it WOULD fail, given the right circumstances.
Calvinists might say He did since they believe He already planned out future events to happen at appointed times.
Did it happen because God created it be flooded by natural means, or did God have to do something extra (beyond natural means) to make it happen?
I think God made the earth with the subterranean chambers as a contingency plan should His creation rebel against Him, and all it would take on His part, as I described to Clete above, would be for Him to simply kick man out of the garden so that he could no longer tend to and maintain it, where it would become overgrown to the point of causing a relief valve to be stopped up, causing pressure to build, which would eventually cause the crust to burst.
This can get mind boggling!
Not if you keep a clear head about it.
It would have been an earth capable of the Flood. It would still take divine providence to bring it about, whether through indirect means and permission, or through direct intervention,
@Clete 's "cork" popping.
Why would it have to be through divine providence?
Why couldn't God just kick man out of the garden, and let the garden naturally become overgrown, stopping up the earth's built-in relief valve, and then keep an eye on it to know when it will pop?
This anyway is the theory we're working with, rather than God more miraculously intervening, creating fresh water ex nihilo to bring about the Flood, which isn't out of the question, but we're focused on the fountains of the very deep, and what that might signify.
But whether or not it was caused miraculously or "naturally" (meaning that God would have directed nature to bring the Flood about directly, but through indirect means of some sort), it's still not unreasonable to think that the evidence, residue or 'scars' from the Flood might still be here, and be very obvious.
How about in scripture?
Ezekiel 31 comes to mind...
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, growing to a size so that it covers mountains, falling to the earth after being cut down... Seems like such an event could trigger the crust of the earth to crack from the strain... and then, as described in the HPT, that crack could then race around the earth, "and all the fountains of the great deep broke forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened..."