The Bible, The Bone Yards, and The Genesis Flood (Part II)

“A wave of archaeological discoveries is altering old ideas about the roots of Christianity and Judaism—and affirming that the Bible is more historically accurate than many scholars thought.” U. S. News & World Report

The Genesis Flood

The flood never happened, they say!  In their search for “evidence”, our critics deserve a round of applause for their decision to appeal to the disciplines of geology and archaeology.  However, they ‘evidently’ spent no actual time researching either topic, as it relates to the Bible.  Ever hear of the “internet”(the information highway!)?  Everything one will ever need to refute their negativity is found there! 

Whether or not this choir of cynics and scoffers ever acquiesces to the fact of Noah’s Flood is irrelevant.  The overwhelming fact of the matter is, the preponderance of evidence (even when it is only circumstantial!) highlights and underscores the fact that there was indeed somewhere in the not too distant past one heck-of-a-gigantic flood—all over the world (as noted above, and will be noted shortly, even scoffing, non-Bible-believing but otherwise noteworthy geologists are warming up to this fact, globally!  To them, one might say, it is impossible to have a 1.33 mile rise in sea level above the norm, in say, the Chile/Peru region of the globe, and not have a comparable rise all around the world in the Pacific, Arctic, Mediterranean, Indian, etc.  The same water fills all these oceans, at the same level, on any given day of calm!  More on this later)!  Call it what you will!  That fact alone then gives enormous credence to the biblical account.  And it’s all per the exact, tangible, fully realizable knowledge of the very thing each purports to rely upon for its accuracy, exactitude and trustworthiness, namely the physical sciences of geology and archaeology!  In every strata of reason, these two disciplines provide a plethora of evidences that to a large extent confirm the reality of Noah’s flood—from the large number of bivalves found buried with valves closed (signaling a swift burial alive, before death; clams normally die with their shell halves open), to the thousands upon thousands of fossil graveyards that contain stacks of millions and millions of fossilized skeleton remains, all around the world, in addition to the vast fields of vegetation crushed, pressurized and ‘cooled’ into coal along with animal tissue turned to crude under similar conditions, as well as polystrate fossilized trees that stand in what should be lower, old strata, like coal, that formed over millions of years, reaching into sometimes several upper layers of sedimentary rock that supposedly formed millions of years later!  There are even polystrate fish, that quite destroy the notion that different layers of strata demand  and/or represent enormous periods of time!

Outline/overview of the Geological Record:

Death, en masse, during ruinous, disastrous flooding

            Plants

            Animals

Compilations, catastrophic stacking

Burial, en masse, of all those stacks, in sediments like mud, silt, and sand

Compression (or, “compaction”)

            De-oxidation

            Cementation, re-crystallization and other post-depositional changes

            Dehydration, producing or leaving a record in the form of

               Sedimentary Rock

               Fossilized bones and other hard parts

               Coal

               Crude

               Natural Gas

Sedimentary Rock!

Side Bar:

“Fossil and Fossilization…Interpreting The Fossil Record” 

“During episodes of high sea level, the interiors of continents such as North America and Asia are flooded with seawater.  These periods are known as marine transgressions.  The converse, periods of low sea level when the waters drain from the continents, are known as marine regressions.  During transgressions, fossils of marine animals may be laid down over older beds of terrestrial animal fossils.  When sea level fall occurs…sediments with fossils of terrestrial animals may accumulate over older marine animals.”  In his effort to account for “unusual collections of floras and faunas in sediments and sedimentary rocks” in places where they—plants and animals—reasonably should not be (fish in Siberia’s steppes; dinosaur in Antarctica), this author goes on to point an accusatory figure at “plate tectonics and the occasional marine flooding of inland areas…” (read the whole article at: http://science.jrank.org/pages/2846/Fossil-Fossilization.html) (end of side bar).

One wonders whether Mr. Loy understands the implication of this geologist’s statement?  What this paleontologist has done, along with many others, some of whom will be cited here later, is readily admit the impracticality of trying to explain the fossil record absent a dramatic shift in global sea levels—i.e., today’s geologic fossil record is impossible without a world wide flood of ocean water!  He does, of course stop short of any endorsement of the Bible’s flood.  Nonetheless, a world-encompassing flood is a world-encompassing flood, by any standard—God’s, or man’s!  Seasonal flooding is expressly precluded due to the sheer height to which the seas in some areas had to rise, in order to flood that region, so as dump its depository of marine life and other evidences—and the fact that there is no such thing as a “sloping” or tapered sea-rise.  An ocean rise of over a mile in one area, automatically implies an ocean rise by a comparable amount all around the world.  Thus, the Bible is vindicated and validated by the object of your own plea!  Based squarely upon their witness, the evidence is as plentiful as it is pristine.  You want evidence of a catastrophe, read on!  Geologists and paleontologists, having found themselves between the proverbial rock and a hard place, do not have a choice now.  They have to admit to the reality of a global, cataclysmic, watery event as the source of today’s planet spanning sedimentary rock beds and the absolutely stunning disarray and staggering numbers of assorted fossils they contain (retired geologist and member of my former San Antonio Christian Writers Group, Mr. Richard Barnett—who critiqued this work and offered insightful constructive criticism—disagrees vehemently, with the idea of a global flood, although he is a professing Christian!).

A huge percentage of the earth’s surface (75% to 80%), including its high mountain ranges world-wide, is said to be covered by this sedimentary rock (pillow rock—lava that was cooled and hardened under water—also adorns the tops of some mountains, lending further support for the Bible’s global flood.  In so many words, any given mountain so covered would have to have been under water, or, this rock could not materialize.).  Only 5% of the rocks on earth are actually sedimentary, however.  The remainder is igneous (requiring tremendous heat to form) and metamorphic.  The universality or, global nature of this sedimentary rock bed, particularly as it pertains to the formation of the fossil record, demands deposition by water, and, lots of it, all at once—not over millions and millions of years; in which case, decay and rot would have destroyed the fossil record, long before it ever formed.

Sedimentary rock functions as the earth’s record keeper, or, one might say, its recorder of deeds.  As such, it tells in marvelous detail, some amazing stories of what went on in antiquity, exactly as it happened (play by play, as it were), nature’s very own, very personal, very much ancient eyewitness reporting system.  Part of that record involves what can only be described in terms of massive, global flooding, that collected staggering numbers of animals and plants, dumping them in massive piles, only to bury those piles in tons upon tons of sedimentary mud, that solidified into rock.  Wherever fossils are found, it is this rock that will have warehoused and stored them.  In this sense, when conditions demand or warrant, it is nature’s storehouse, in which case it captures, packages, dehydrates, deoxidizes, transforms within this hermetically sealed packaging and stores for generations to come, whatever falls within its grasp.  This has to happen quickly, so as to prevent decay and rot that would otherwise destroy every trace of evidence.

Side Bar

“Massive Fossil ‘Boneyards’ all over the World”

“…massive fossil graveyards of dinosaurs still exist all over the world.  The Morrison beds in North America, the dinosaur beds in Montana, in the Rocky Mountains, in Alberta, the Dakotas, China, Colorado, Utah, Africa, etc., etc. contain literally millions of dinosaur fossils piled together in tremendous heaps…with the piles of fossilized mammals, fish, insects, plants etc., testifying that they all perished together in a great mass death” (excerpted from “The Darwin Papers; Dinosaurs and the Flood of Noah”, by James M. Foard)(end of side bar).

Just as the sedimentary rock file system of nature is a worldwide phenomenon, so likewise, the secrets and the fossil records it conceals, or, has concealed for millennia, is global in scope.  There are said to be thousands upon thousands of literal stockpiles of bones of many different types of creatures (by implication, that would ordinarily not be found so, living together in life) scattered all around the world, containing huge heaps and piles of concentrated, smashed, twisted and contorted bones, all stacked on top of each other—sometimes hundreds of feet deep, in areas that stretch from hundreds of yards to several hundred square miles, in some instances.  In these caches, there are bizarre mixes of land animals with sea creatures, saltwater fish with freshwater fish (it is worthy of note that fish and their fins will decompose rapidly, if they are not quickly covered with a sediment that squeezes out oxygen, creating a hermetical seal that prevents decay of any remains.).  America and China have these bone piles with hundreds of assorted dinosaurs mixed and buried in the same grave.  Yet, for all the staggering numbers of creatures stored in sedimentary rock, 95% are actually marine vertebrate (especially shellfish).  This is not the stuff of casual “extinction” subject to unimaginable time, as demanded by the scoffing evolutionist and Bible critic, nor is the sedimentary record laid out necessarily in some neat little discrete layers (certainly not in every case), with one type of creature here over one period of time, and, another or others up higher, over another period of time.  This recording is the aftermath of a major, calamitous and horrifically watery event, biblical in magnitude (it is moreover, a stump of reason that finds the otherwise doubting and scoffing paleontologist knowingly within easy eyeshot of—as will be shown shortly; and, as always, one upon which the rumps of creationist Christians have been perched for quite some time!). 

All of these multitudes of various types of animals and species, most of which no longer exist, did not simply walk to a particular location, throw themselves upon piles of other creatures already dead or dying, and then, themselves proceed to expire, as millennia came and went.  The decomposition factor renders such a speculative possibility null and void.  Thousands of heaps of carcasses, positioned all around this planet, so violently jumbled and thrown together as they obviously were by tidal action—‘a tangled mess’ in the same strata, no less, as well as marine mammals (clams and sea shells) found at the tops of high mountain ranges, globally—needed some sort of lift, at one time, in order to have been created.  Whales, sharks and megalodons and other sea creatures found today in high mountainous desert areas over one half to 1.33 miles above sea level, miles, even hundreds of miles away from the nearest shoreline, around the world did not simply jump out of ocean waters to their deaths in these locations.  In addition, implementation of the aforementioned sedimentary “packaging” system, once every carcass was in place, had to be immediate—via a rapidly forming, thick covering of tons upon tons of silt, sand and mud—so as to prevent the decomposing on account of which we do not have any remaining skeletal remains of creatures left in the open, exposed to the elements and oxygen (all creatures begin to rot upon dying.  They do not lie in wait for years, waiting for others to join their fossil record, so as to form fossils, crude, coal or natural gas.). The shear scope, vastness of range (worldwide), numbers and diversity of creatures involved is itself proof positive that “extinction” for any reason other than a global catastrophe—whether meteor strike, or, shortage of food—was definitely not a factor in their executions (the numbers indicate that large mammals were thriving, not dwindling; massive fields of peat and coal suggest the food supply of vegetation was plentiful).  Thus, where death, placement, and preservation are concerned, the only viable, available and manageable solution would have been a flood of waters, of biblical proportions.  Even some if not many noted non-creationist, non-Christian modern geologists and paleontologists are now prepared to acknowledge that creation of such massive bone-yards as have been unearthed all over the globe is unthinkable, absent major, catastrophic flooding—though, in spite of the obvious they are not ready to concede to the idea of a global flood, or, the Genesis flood.  Consider the following side bar: 

Side Bar

Paleontologists rethinking/discarding old myths

Many modern scientists are said to be returning to an embrace of catastrophism, to explain the many obviously, vehemently disheveled fossil beds of our day.  Most early geologists were Bible believers (or, so it has been suggested).  This is most compelling when one remembers that, according to some geologists, seas millions of years ago were not much higher normally than they are at this moment. 

Dinosaur National Monument, caption:  “After a seasonal flood:…clues in the rock…Carasses brought downstream by the fast-moving, muddy water were washed onto a sandbar.  Some were buried completely by tons of sand—their bones preserved in a nearly perfect state.”  Mr. Barnett in his critique adds that, “They show evidence of wear and tear during transport and exposure at the surface before burial”.

Paul Sareno, paleontologist at the University of Chicago:  found “Jabaria”, a 65’ long dinosaur that was 95% complete, which means the creature died and was buried and preserved fully in tact; cause of death and burial:  “…caught in an ancient flash flood and buried quickly,” not a meteorite, so that the bones were not washed into place individually, separate from the rest

Robert Sanders, writing for the University of California, describing a huge pterosaur grave:  ‘bones in Chile’s Atacama desert scattered throughout an ancient flood deposit, strongly suggestive of animals or corpses having been caught up in a flood’, well in advance of the time required for decay and rot to set in—thereby destroying any prospect for a modern fossil record, such as has been preserved; again, there is no evidence of a killer meteor strike, or, a global food shortage.

BBC article, “Walking with Dinosaurs”:  Ghost Ranch, Abaquiu, NM—“Paleontologists believe that the collection of fossils was the result of a mass death…a flash flood buried them in a muddy sediment where they were preserved.”

Fernando Escasco, paleontologist at Cuenca’s science museum:  Massive fossil bed at Lo Hueco, “…probably washed into the fossil bed by heavy flooding”

Sharktooth Hill Bone Bed:  huge find littered with numerous seals, whales, giant sharks called megalodons, etc., that “…seem to tell us of a 15 million-year-old disaster” (the story of the life of fossil beds—although there are those scientists who, needless to say, remain doubters and scoffers of the obvious!).