Mark I. Vuletic

Last updated 21 March 2008

Analysis

(i) A vapor canopy capable of containing a fair share of the water allegedly present in Noah's Flood would increase the pressure and temperature beneath it to deadly levels. Paul D. Farrar has calculated that the environment beneath such a canopy would be equivalent to a "13,000 psi boiler."

(ii) As Farrell Till points out, there is no archaeological evidence to back up the idea that people lived for hundreds of years in the times and areas described by the Bible:

Probably more archaeological digging has taken place in that part of the world than anywhere else, yet no one has ever found human remains that expert examination has determined to be anywhere close to the ages that the Bible attributes to the antedeluvian patriarchs, yet if the Bible is true, there had to have been thousands of people buried in the silt of the flood who were several centuries old. Why haven't we found these people?...The truth is that evidence unearthed so far indicates that prehistoric man had a very short li[f]e span compared to ours. The consensus of experts who have examined prehistoric human remains is that 40 was a ripe old age. (Till 1995: 1)

(iii) Those who believe a vapor canopy is mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis are mistaken. Some creationists interpret Genesis 1:7 as having God divide the waters into the earth below and a water-laden atmosphere above. However, Genesis 1:14-16 has God placing the Sun, the Moon, and the stars in the firmament of heaven, and Genesis 1:7 locates the firmament of heaven between the two layers of water. Therefore, if we are to go by the Bible, the upper waters cannot be in the Earth's atmosphere, but must instead constitute a vast ocean of water encompassing the entire visible universe.

(iv) The young-earth creationist organization Answers in Genesis advises against using this argument.

References

F. Till. 1995. What about their missing links? The Skeptical Review 6(3).