How could the waters that covered the "whole earth" (as per Noahs dove), be fully "abated" just 7 days later?

Question

Genesis 8:8-11

Noah's dove comes back after the first flight, the world is still totally flooded.

Seven days later the dove comes back with an olive leaf (that somehow, miraculously survived after more than 10 months being submerged!), and Noah knew that "the waters were abated from the earth."

How could water deep enough to flood the ENTIRE earth be gone just 7 days later???? Fundies, you are bible experts...can you help?

Answer 1

The word abated means to lessen or reduce in amount. Noah's ark came to rest on the mountain top so the water would have drained off of it first giving them dry land to step out on to. Noah and his family were in the ark for about one year in total so the rains stopped after forty days and forty nights and then God would have started the proccess of clearing the waters off of the land he wanted raised out of the waters. God raised up tall mountains and formed deep hollows for the waters to drain off into, creating oceans, seas, lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, and creeks. and there are places in the oceans as deep as seven miles and there still may be deeper crevices then that, and we have mountains as tall as 5 miles. The earth was originally flatter then it is now, also we now have an atmosphere filled with rain clouds, snow on top of the mountains, and frozen water at the poles.

Answer 2

Also, ALL OF CREATION DROWNED. Except for a boat full of animals, every living thing on earth died.

What did God do about the corpse covered planet of death he created? Must have smelled awful.  

Answer 3

Read it again Joe... It wasn't gone in just 7 days.. Besides that an olive leaf plucked from a olive vine does not suggest all the water was abated in just seven days.. It suggest that enough land popped out of  or peeked out of water for the dove to be able to grab a leaf to show the waters were receding not that the land was fully exposed.. Hope this helped..God bless you !

Answer 4

It doesn't make scientific sense, because you have to have faith.

(Why you'd have faith in a scientifically idiotic story like this is beyond me.)

Answer 5

It is a story meant to show God's Power, not a historical account.

Answer 6

You are applying human logic to the Divine.  

Answer 7

When the catastrophe came, the physical means employed were twofold, namely, the breaking up of the "fountains of the great deep" and the opening of "the windows of heaven" (Ge 7:11). But the rain is spoken of as continuing as a main cause only 40 days, while the waters continued to prevail for 150 days (Ge 7:24), when (Ge 8:2,3) "the fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained; and the waters returned from off the earth continually," so that after 10 months the ark rested upon "the mountains of Ararat" (not the peak of Mount Ararat, but the highlands of Armenia in the upper part of the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris; see ARARAT). Here it rested 40 days before the water subsided sufficiently to suggest disembarking, when a raven (which could easily find its food on the carcasses of the animals which had been destroyed) was sent forth, and did not return (Ge 8:7); but a dove sent out at the same time found no rest and returned empty to the ark (Ge 8:9). After 7 days, however, it was sent out again and returned with a fresh olive leaf (Ge 8:11). After 7 days more the dove was sent forth again and did not return. After 56 days more of waiting Noah and his family departed from the ark.

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This is only part:

Thus, while we cannot appeal to geology for direct proof of the Noachian Deluge, recent geological discoveries do show that such a catastrophe is perfectly credible from a scientific point of view; and the supposition that there was a universal destruction of the human race, in the northern hemisphere at least, in connection with the floods accompanying the melting off of the glacial ice is supported by a great amount of evidence. There was certainly an extensive destruction of animal species associated with man during that period. In Europe the great Irish elk, the machairodus, the cave lion, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus and the elephant disappeared with prehistoric man, amid the floods at the close of the Glacial epoch. In North America equally large felines, together with horses, tapirs, llamas, great mastodons and elephants and the huge megalonyx went to destruction in connection with the same floods that destroyed so large a part of the human race during the dramatic closing scenes of the period. It is, therefore, by no means difficult for an all-round geologist to believe in a final catastrophe such as is described in Gen. If we disbelieve in the Biblical Deluge it is not because we know too much geology, but too little.

Written by George Frederick Wright

Answer 8

I still can't figure out where ANOTHER group of half human half angel giants came from after that. Did God miss a spot? Did another group of angels rebel and start mating after they had already seen what happens? Wasn't the whole point of the flood to wipe them out, and only Noah and his family hadn't interbreeded?

Answer 9

The whole earth was not covered! When reading, read carefully!

Answer 10

I am afraid you have not read the entire passage properly.  

Start from Chapter 7.  

The last verse of that chapter says the waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.  After that the water had gone down and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.  

The waters continued to recede until the tenth month when the tops of the mountains became visible.  

Forty days after that Noah opened the window in the ark and sent out a raven which kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth.  

He then sent out a dove to see if the waters had receded from the surface of the ground.  

But the dove could find no place to land and returned to the ark.  

Then Noah waited ANOTHER SEVEN days and sent out another dove which came back with an olive leave so Noah knew it was time to leave the ark.

After Noah went into the ark it rained for forty days and night.  He left the ark about a year later.

So it took a lot more than seven days for the water to be fully abated and what I have summarised above is somewhat different to what you wrote.  

I would also just like to encourage all Christians to read their Bible's before commenting on these sorts of questions so that your answers can be more accurate.  God has given us the truth and and we have brains, so let's use them.

Answer 11

UMMM, it got really really hot and the water disintegrated? I mean what else could it be. Oh wait, giant holes opened up in the ground and all the water went into them. That must be how we got the oceans, sea's and rivers.

Wait wait wait. according to the bible Jesus wan't born yet so he didn't exist, right? So how could it be by his will?

Answer 12

other than 'it can't'  i'll be interested to see what comes up

Answer 13

The Lord Jesus, who created everything from nothing, is not restricted by the laws of nature.  He created the laws of nature.   He can permit the laws of nature, or ignore them and override them at any moment.  The laws of nature are His invention, and completely under His power and domain.

Answer 14

The water was already going down before the 7 days.  It had been going down rapidly.  The water was not all dried up from the whole earth when the ark landed.  They landed on top of Mt. Ararat in Turkey which is very high elevation.  In fact, that area has been kept in ice and snow for thousands of years.  The ark is still up there encased in snow and ice.  It was discovered by some mountain climbers who went looking for it.  The story was in the Reader's Digest a few years ago.

Besides that, remember where a good portion of the water came from in the first place?  It came from underground tunnels, caves, etc.  Much of the water went back to those places.

Answer 15

Think about it....It had to spread out over the whole earth. It made the brooks,oceans, and etc. That requires alot of water to fill up those spaces. Plus, it was an act of God."Nothing is impossible with God".

Answer 16

Like you really want to know....8-/

Answer 17

NO story is too silly for the bible, or for fundies to swallow.

Answer 18

Genesis 7:24 says the water covered the earth for 150 days-then Noah set out the raven to see if there was any dry land. Seven days (or 47 days depending on how you read it) later, he set out a dove which returned because there was no place for it to land. Seven days after that, he set out the dove again and it didn't return so he knew there was dry land. At the end of a year (Noah was 600 when the flood started and he was 601 when they came out of the art) Noah opened the door and walked onto dry land.(Genesis 8:13)

Answer 19

Seven days? Are you sure you read that right?

Genesis 8

The Flood Recedes

1 But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and livestock with him in the boat. He sent a wind to blow across the earth, and the floodwaters began to recede. 2 The underground waters stopped flowing, and the torrential rains from the sky were stopped. 3 So the floodwaters gradually receded from the earth. After 150 days, 4 exactly five months from the time the flood began,[a] the boat came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5 Two and a half months later,[b] as the waters continued to go down, other mountain peaks became visible.

6 After another forty days, Noah opened the window he had made in the boat 7 and released a raven. The bird flew back and forth until the floodwaters on the earth had dried up. 8 He also released a dove to see if the water had receded and it could find dry ground. 9 But the dove could find no place to land because the water still covered the ground. So it returned to the boat, and Noah held out his hand and drew the dove back inside. 10 After waiting another seven days, Noah released the dove again. 11 This time the dove returned to him in the evening with a fresh olive leaf in its beak. Then Noah knew that the floodwaters were almost gone. 12 He waited another seven days and then released the dove again. This time it did not come back.

Answer 20

Actually there is historical record of a major flood in that area of the earth at that time.  The key is in that area of the world.  To people of the time had a much small belief in the size of  the world.  It was pretty much local.  A major hurricane could of easily flooded their know world.