Session 5 – The flood and Ice Age
In this session we will review (quickly) the
theory on how the flood happened
(Catastrophic plate tectonics)
From there we will look at the evidence for
the ice age, and how it could have happened
(and when) within a Biblical framework for
earths history
As we move forward to look at the ice age
there are several things we need to keep
in mind about the flood
Large amounts of ash were released into
the atmosphere during the flood
When we look at the flood and the massive
amount of plate tectonics that took place
during the flood, it would cause massive
volcanic activity
This wouldn’t just be a few average
volcanoes, some volcanoes can get very
large, and cause massive amounts of ash to
be ejected into the atmosphere
Yellowstone national
park is an example of a
huge volcano that
would cause a massive
amount of ash to enter
the atmosphere
This ash would cause the amount of sunlight
hitting the surface to go down (an effect
that is called nuclear winter)
This is the first thing to keep in mind when
looking at the ice age
The ocean temperature rose due to the
ocean floors being replaced
This becomes an incredible important factor
in explaining the ice age from the flood, the
ocean floors being warmer, would cause the
oceans themselves to be slightly warmer
These warm oceans would cause a large
amount of precipitation, and greatly increase
the weather activity on planet earth
Why do we mention these things?
They explain the Ice Age
Some Christians argue that the ice age
never happened, because they think it
goes against what the Bible says
But the evidence for an ice age is
overwhelming when we look around the
world, and we have to explain (Biblically)
how it could have happened
What the evidence for the Ice Age (or a sort
of ice age taking place?)
We can look at whole countries and see
the effect of the past ice age
One problem people
have had is explaining
how these huge ice
sheets, like the one
covering Greenland,
originally formed.
What would happen if you removed all the
snow off of Greenland?
The ice sheet wouldn’t form again in the
environment that we find ourselves in today
Some have claimed that ice sheets take
hundreds of thousands of years to
form because of annual ice rings that
we can observe
There are some problems though
The lost squadron in
WW2 landed in
Greenland and was lost
(one of the airplanes)
Someone got the bright
idea to head over there
and brush off the snow
and fly it back several
years after it happened
When they got there, it was a little more
snow than they expected. 263 feet of ice was
covering the aircraft after only 48 years
If they had randomly
taken ice core
samples out without
knowing the airplane
was there, it would
have dated
thousands of years
But understand,
they’ll have a
response
They will quickly point out that the
conditions in this area where the plane was
found, are different than your normal
conditions in other areas
The area where this
plane is found is near
the gulf stream, which is
a current of warmer
water that runs through
the Atlantic ocean
Warmer water means more precipitation
which means more snow, and they claim
that because of this warmer ocean area,
that’s the reason in this area the dating
method doesn’t work
This shows us that ice sheets can form
rapidly under high precipitation conditions
which come about when the oceans
are warmer
This would give us a great explanation on
how the ice sheets could have formed,
because the whole ocean (from the flood)
would have these high precipitation levels
Combine these high levels of precipitation
with ash in the atmosphere and you have
the “perfect storm” to create an ice age
Large amounts of ash in the atmosphere
would cause a nuclear winter, which would
drive the temperatures down in many areas
How does the ice age happen? The flood
causes it! Warmer oceans cause more
weather / precipitation, nuclear winter assists
in lowering temperatures mildly (although
weather would also help)
Does the Bible mention the Ice Age?
Job 38:29: “From whose womb did the ice
come forth, and who has given birth to the
frost of heaven?”
Because of the timing on the book of Job,
it becomes a real possibility that it could
be referring to it
But remember, the ice age didn’t have much
effect on the area where the Bible is
centered around, so we wouldn’t
expect much of a reference
We’re not done yet, what does everyone
think about when you talk about the ice age?
Mammoths are
the popular topic
with the ice age
(There have been
some movies that
helped with that)
Mammoths are
often times
depicted as big
harry hippie
looking elephants
When did the mammoths go extinct?
What was the weather they lived in?
There has been some debate on what the
climate the mammoths lived in was really
like, not everyone thinks it’s the cold
weather that we’ve been taught
We won’t spend too much time arguing
which climate they lived in, but will deal with
some ideas that people have about them
Snap frozen theory
There is a theory that the mammoths were
snap frozen from an comet (and a
massive poor of ice) because of
several lines of “evidence”
The first (and major) line of evidence comes
from the well preserved food inside the
stomachs of mammoths, the food is still
fresh, which means it had to freeze quick
before digestion kicked in
This has since been shown not to be the
case with the mammoths stomach
“The good state of preservation of the
stomach contents does not call for superrapid freezing of the carcasses. Rather than
food digestion, the mammoth stomach acts
as a food storage pouch.” Michael Oard
Other evidences include things like the
mammoths frozen in the upright position
This doesn’t mean they had to be frozen
quickly, it just means they had to be buried
quickly before they could fall over
“They were buried in the dust storms that
deposited the loess blankets found in those
regions today. Some were entombed in a
standing position. “ - Oard
That would happen several hundred years
after the flood (600 or so years)
How were there so many if they died
immediately following the flood?
It’s actually isn’t that hard to explain how
two or so million mammoths can exist 600700 years after the flood
They could easily migrate to the North over a
few years, and once there they don’t have
many predators or competition for food, so
they can reproduce at top speed
There are other theories on how the ice age
could have happened that we briefly
mentioned above
One theory says that the ice age actually
caused the flood, not the other way around
This theory says a comet
caused the ice age, and
the ice age/comet
together cause the flood
And because of the massive amount of
material that was dumped on the planet,
the crust of the earth begins to crack, and
the fountains of the great deep are opened
They will claim that ice is water, and would
count as part of the flood (not everything
has to be killed by running water, ice/solid
water would also be acceptable)
Most don’t buy into this theory though
According to the theory a comet made a
close pass by planet earth and dumped a
ton of super cold ice from space on us
This cold ice would be magnetic (because of
its low temperature) and because of it
would be attracted to the poles (which is
why the ice wasn’t randomly dumped all
over planet earth)
This massive dump of ice freezes the
mammoths and other animals in those regions
Something else the Ice Age can explain, how
do animals get to water locked continents
If all the animals were on the ark which
landed in the middle east area, how is it
possible that the mammoths got to ocean
locked North America (and other animals)
and how did Kangaroos get to Australia?
After the flood, the oceans would calm
down to their normal levels after a few
years, which means some continents
like Australia and the Americas would
be locked off
But at the same time, over the next few hundred years as the oceans are warmer
But
at the same time, the high precipitation
levels would cause much of that moisture to
be moved into ice form on the continents
(or ice sheets)
We can get a good idea how much water
would have been in the ice sheets /
glaciers / and other ice age formations
The amount present would lower the water
levels enough to make all continents
connected during the ice age
A catastrophic worldwide event (like the
flood) is the best way to get an ice age
started (with warmer oceans)
The Bible provides the best framework to
understand the ice age that we see
evidence of all around the world
There is much more you could study on this
topic though, we’ve only skimmed the
surface of the research
Memory Verse
Job 38:29: “From whose womb did the ice
come forth, and who has given birth to the
frost of heaven?”